WPT-RIP????????

I knew that The deadline had passed for renewal of the TV contract between GSN and the WPT, and the last time I looked, WPTE stock was trading for around $1.10 a share. Last nite, I decided to try and check to see if any recent progress had been made in negotiations.

Their website, wptongsn, shows up as a domain for sale, meaning it's not there any more. This season's broadcasts are scheduled to run until the middle of August. Is that the death knell for the WPT? Where will we go now for televised poker? High Stakes Poker is already filming no new shows. What'll we do for our weekly poker fix? Will Mike Sexton go bask to playing on the wsop circuit? Is Vince gonna have to (shudder) get a real job? Inqyiring minds wanna know.

God lets hope not. My DVR would finally get a break though.

What are you talking about?

WPT on GSN | WPT on GSN

Not for sale...

arkadiy said:

What are you talking about?

WPT on GSN | WPT on GSN

Not for sale...

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I dunno, wouldn't come up yesterday. I got an offer to bid on the domain name instead. Musta been a glitch.

reglardave said:

I dunno, wouldn't come up yesterday. I got an offer to bid on the domain name instead. Musta been a glitch.

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typo maybe?

Last I heard, WPTE was trying to negotiate with several networks for TV rights to the '08-'09 season. Considering their run on GSN was very short, I worry that they might not get picked up by anyone. But who knows. FSN just finished showing the Aussie Millions, and my FSN affiliate still shows replays of the old Poker Superstars III. So maybe they will pick WPT up.

ESPN's coverage of the 2008 WSOP starts on July 22nd and runs through the final on November 11th.

smd173 said:

Last I heard, WPTE was trying to negotiate with several networks for TV rights to the '08-'09 season. Considering their run on GSN was very short, I worry that they might not get picked up by anyone. But who knows. FSN just finished showing the Aussie Millions, and my FSN affiliate still shows replays of the old Poker Superstars III. So maybe they will pick WPT up.

ESPN's coverage of the 2008 WSOP starts on July 22nd and runs through the final on November 11th.

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I was always skeptical of their deal with GSN. They seemed kinda out of place with the Family Feud marathons,etc. They didn't get a primo time slot either, which I'm sure hurt. There's other problems, too, apparantly. Prize pools at many of their events were down severely this past year.

Meanwhile, the Travel Channel is still trotting out moldy reruns every Saturday night, some old enough to still have Courtney Friel!

WPT sucks balls.

"HE BETS ONE MILLION DOLLARS ON THE RIVER OMG WHAT A SICK bluff IMO!"

The inside story with my WPT connections is that the new CEO of GSN is not a fan of poker because he considers it "gambling" and he's part of some "wholesome" culture movement at that network ... nevermind that their TOP FOUR ranked shows are all poker. This is why High Stakes Poker was not renewed as well.

WPT (in my pure 100% opinion) will not be back on GSN but might make a jump to a related network. Fox Sports makes a lot of sense, but you never know I mean they survived on the frickin TRAVEL channel.

petition for gambling channel plzzzz

Screw a gambling channel, how bout a poker channel? Much better idea imo

poker is a subset of gambling ldo

A Gaming Channel?

I'm actually surprised there hasn't been a Poker Channel put together already. There's enough footage in the vault and plenty of interest for people to watch it.

icemonkey9 said:

I'm actually surprised there hasn't been a Poker Channel put together already. There's enough footage in the vault and plenty of interest for people to watch it.

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There is a thread some where around here like that, some compared a poker channel to the "speed" channel for racing or whatever, but it would obv be a good idea imo, plus advertising......with the whole online market.....cmon lol

Barry Greenstein did an interview where he talked about televised poker. He said that during the big poker boom, stations were getting *paid* to air some poker shows. Online sites would pay for the series, so the stations made money in addition to advertising revenues.

Now, when you try to *sell* stations a poker series they scoff at the idea of actually paying for something they used to get paid to air. Plus the advertising market has dried up, so it's harder for stations to get sponsors to generate advertising revenue.


As for a poker channel on TV, if I had the opportunity I'd do it, but I'd call it something like "The Card Gamer Channel" or "The Table Gaming Network" or something like that. I wouldn't want to limit it to poker, because who knows where the next boom will hit? What if blackjack or some other variant takes off in popularity? I'd want to be able to cash in on that.

KingCurtis said:

There is a thread some where around here like that, some compared a poker channel to the "speed" channel for racing or whatever, but it would obv be a good idea imo, plus advertising......with the whole online market.....cmon lol

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Here you go...

[old link~tb]

If anyone's good at web stuff, this may be an opportunity for someone to start a web "station" and maybe it would be picked up by a network and make some $$.

Of course you would have to get approval from the different series to use their footage. OR, you could try to make all new footage, maybe some amaeture tournies and maybe some pro's would let you film... who knows.

I can see it now... CCTV

A poker channel makes wonderful sense .... WPT certainly has enough millionaires out there to set it up an independent series on their own specialized space.

K_Kahne_Fan said:

If anyone's good at web stuff, this may be an opportunity for someone to start a web "station"

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This would be a great idea as the WPT could be played back and there could be more options like dubs and subs (even thrid party).

Another option would be to release the episodes through torrents with good poker offers and minor advertising (should be mostly in game).

web 'station' = Pokertube.com – A Video Community for Pokerplayers

Why couldn't Spike take it over? They already have UFC(if I'm not mistaken) plus they ran that King of Vegas thing. They also have gaming during their movies...

Seems like it should feel at home on Spike. Plus WPT seems to love bikini clad girls, and Spike definitely loves them so, why not?

There is poker tube and poker road already on the internet. And maybe Ted Turner's ear needs to get bent a little, he has the cash and the know how.

Although I'd love to see a Poker/Gaming Channel, the cable universe has been alittle bleak for startups lately. Consider that the NFL Network is in negotiations with ESPN to help them because they only have about 39 Million subscribers (small in the cable world).

If the billion dollar NFL can't even get a 24/7 network devoted to football in more homes, do you think Poker could? Poker ratings have been down. That is one of the key reasons the WSOP Final Table was moved to November.

I agree with ND that the WPT would seem to be a great fit on SPIKE.

smd173 said:

Although I'd love to see a Poker/Gaming Channel, the cable universe has been alittle bleak for startups lately. Consider that the NFL Network is in negotiations with ESPN to help them because they only have about 39 Million subscribers (small in the cable world).

If the billion dollar NFL can't even get a 24/7 network devoted to football in more homes, do you think Poker could? Poker ratings have been down. That is one of the key reasons the WSOP Final Table was moved to November.

I agree with ND that the WPT would seem to be a great fit on SPIKE.

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The only place NFL network was available last year was on satellite (Dish, DirecTV). The cable conglomerates didn't bite, nor would they jump into an all poker network.

Spike does seem an excellent spot for WPT, either them or FSN.