I agree. Maybe PokerStars just realised, that all this "team pro" thing was not a very effective way of spending marketing dollars, and then they made the terms so unfavourable, that a lot of people left. There are other ways of advertising, and maybe the brand is so strong, it more or less sell itself. Despite all the ciriticism PokerStars still see 4-6 times more traffic than their closest competitors.
Fundiver- good points.
That said, I am not sure
poker stars have learned any lesson as now they swing to celebrities etc. Again I have no idea how someone such as Kevin Hart, even with his all his celebrity, actually brings people to the game. Its a dumb rationale to me. Further to that one which takes money out of the poker ecosystem which could go to direct promotions for the players.
By way of example. Last year (as a newbie of sorts) I stumbled across Poker Stars daily
freerolls which were running through August/September 2018. I had never seen them before (could not tell you why they were promoting them- perhaps someone else could) but they were awesome. A few times a day, they would run freerolls of $200 or $300 dollars and split the winnings to a really broad field such as between 800 to1800 players. This meant that most would only win 10 cents but people obviously loved them- the fields were about 7,000 on average up to 11,000 plus. The largest I recorded was 14,000 plus runners. They stopped mid September.
The key to me was the idea that
so many could win something, no matter how small.
What occurred to me at the time was the span of daily freerolls was costing Poker Stars a few hundred dollars a day (which obviously stayed in their ecosystem in players accounts). Yet they were pulling thousands to play them who were obviously loving it and building small bankrolls- I cashed many times and it was thrilling.
By comparison, they are said to have paid many of their team pros six figures and possibly one over seven figures a year in sponsorship. So they could simply apply what they pay one Team Pro member to having say, two open freerolls daily (and now presumably many in the US could participate) and generate a huge fee good factor for themselves.
So...I watched for them to occur again this year (had no idea of it was something to do with SCOOP) but they failed to materialize. Meanwhile, we have Keven Hart, the UFC or whatever half-baked idea they come up with in terms of promotion. Liv Boeree and Igor Kurganov ???
However, on the flip side, they must know that giving a
little back to a broad field of entrants (again between 800 and 1800 paid off each event) was generating a huge amount of excitement and direct feel good factor for themselves.
So I honestly do not get the thinking.