Hm, this is a very interesting question and one I had never considered before. Here's some thoughts.
First, I think the problem here is that the
wsop Main Event is to big of a measuring stick. It would be like taking Mount Everest and 100 hills and trying to identify 4 "major mounds" from the group. With Mount Everest in the mix there would be no way to justifiably call any of the other hills a Major. So, I believe the first step is to label events as large as the WSOP Main Event that we should give it a label even greater than a major. Think about the Super Bowl. A "Bowl Game" is a college championship game. Placing the Super Bowl in a group with all the college Bowl games would be akin to the Everest example above.
So, to sum it up, Poker should label Major tournaments as such, but set tournaments like the WSOP Main Event in a class all their own. Maybe Super Majors? I don't know.
So, then we have the question of how do we identify majors of the rest of the field. Well, I think there would have to be a number of criteria to meet:
1. Number of players
2. Buy-in
3. Prize Pool
4. Duration
I don't know what the formula would be, but some combination of those 4 things would be required to label something a Major.
Ultimately though, there is the prestige factor to take into account. A poker tournament could have all of the above and if there is no prestige to go with it then it can't be considered a major. A tournament which hits all the criteria above but lacks the prestige factor could be considered a "Big" tournament, but not a Major tournament.
Here's how I think we should label tournaments:
Super Majors
Majors
Big
Where you have to be a Big tournament before you can be considered a Major, but you don't become a Major until you have the prestige to go with it.
