Awful week for US based poker tours

The European Poker Tour, The World Series of Poker Circuit Series (not to be confused with the World Series of Poker or the World Series of Poker Europe), the World Poker Tour, and the North American Poker Tour. These were just some of the more prominent poker tournaments taking place this past weekend -there was also the Heartland Poker Tour, the Macau Masters, and the Battles at the Beach tournament series-not to mention the typical slate of Sunday tournaments at the online poker sites nd the local tournaments held daily at casinos across the country.

So is it little wonder that the NAPT Mohegan Sun Main Event saw an attendance drop from 719 players last year to 387 players this time around, or that the WPT Hollywood Poker Open went from 144 players down to 98, or that the EPT Berlin saw their attendance fall from 945 players down to 773?

In a recent column on ESPN.com, Andrew Feldman gave his thoughts on how the tours could counteract this problem, which basically revolved around the formation of a governing body for poker, but I think the real missing ingredient is incentives.

Poker tours are akin to an airline’s frequent flyer program in that they are basically the same. A player can simply look for the most convenient tournament in their price-range -be it at a local casino, a possible vacation they are planning on taking, or even online-and that’s the end of the story. The only current incentive is the possibility to get one’s self on TV, but this is only an incentive to professional players looking to score, or retain, a sponsorship deal, not to mention virtually every major poker tour has a TV contract of some sort.

Realistically, the average tournament participant doesn’t care if the name in front of the tournament they are participating in says WSOP Circuit, WPT, NAPT, or whatever other acronym you wish to replace those with.

So without using Andrew Feldman’s ideas -which are very good by the way - here is a look at my ideas on how we can fix the tournament problem:

• Take a page from online poker sites and ALWAYS prominently display a guaranteed prize-pool amount
• Get a better handle on sponsored pros and offer them up for autograph sessions and other marketing campaigns
• Merchandise for Main Event entrants and giveaways by the sponsoring casino and poker site

In my mind, by offering up special promotions and other ideas to draw in players the better poker tours will stand out while the ones in it just to make a quick buck will fall by the wayside.