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 The
chronology of the poker boom runs something like Rounders, online poker, Late Night Poker, the World Poker Tour, Chris
Moneymaker. Each did its part, and while Moneymaker was more of a nuclear blast, the World Poker Tour's John the Baptist
role can't be overstated.
That said, the World Poker Tour more or less peaked soon after it started... kind of like hit movie debuts at its peak,
and then just does well for the rest of its life.
The World Poker Tour's primary problem was its essential greediness, which showed itself most notoriously during its
second season when Vince Van Patten referred to Chris Moneymaker's World Series of Poker win not by name but by saying
Chris won a "major tournament" the previous year. Yeah, and Muhammad Ali won a fight. Similarly, its extremely
player-unfriendly terms won it few supporters.
Its website fortunes are similar. Naturally it ranks well for World Poker Tour related searches, and also on Google
for a one word poker search, but the website design almost screams "hey, we made the poker boom, find what you are
looking for on the site, we aren't going to help you." Additionally, there is little incentive for other websites to
link to the World Poker Tour because it has no such generosity in return. For instance, Phil Hellmuth's bio is littered
with irrelevant advertisements, but no link to Phil's personal website. Successful websites give and receive (called
hub and authority scores).
While this doesn't much impact the TV show, it does impact on the WPT's failed cardroom attempt. Running an online
cardroom without US players is not just doable, but doable with nine figure yearly profits. A bit more generosity all
around would likely get a major return. |
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