The case AGAINST governing bodies and unions in poker Part 3

In part 1 of this series I detailed why a players’ union in poker simply wouldn’t work; in part 2 I discussed the problems with a governing body for the game; and now in this the final entry of this series I want to express my opinions on why poker will never be able to garner the mainstream appeal of other sports/games like Golf or a team sport like football/basketball/baseball. The problem with poker is two-fold in my opinion.

The first issue being that live poker could very well be the most boring endeavor to watch on the planet. The second problem is that poker itself doesn’t have the structure and format for fans to root for certain players. And for both of these reasons, advertisers will never view poker as the best way to spend their marketing dollars.

Anyone who has ever been to a live poker tournament knows that aside from a few diehard poker followers who could watch the same 15-minute hand a dozen times and not get bored, the crowds are scant, the action is slow, and the entire atmosphere of the event is one of confusion. The only exception to this is the World Series of Poker final table which draws a pretty big crowd, but mostly the attendees are friends, family, and acquaintances of the players.

The difference between poker and golf is quite simple: You are never going to see someone do something at a poker table that you can’t do yourself! On the other hand, at The Masters you will see people who can outdrive you by 100 yards; players who can make a golf ball stick to the green as if it was Velcro, and all manner of shots that you the average person could never make. And this is why golf attracts huge galleries of fans to their live events while poker has a bunch of stragglers.

As far as rooting for players –or rooting for a local team-poker simply doesn’t offer this. You don’t know when Daniel Negreanu or Phil Ivey will be eliminated from a tournament so poker is not like golf where no matter how bad Tiger Woods shoots on the first hole you know you’ll get to see him play at least two rounds of 18 holes. Or no matter how bad the Celtics perform in Game 1 of a playoff series you know they’ll have at least three more shots to earn a W.

There is one other problem with live poker; basically there is no room for spectators, and even if there was you need to be fairly close to the action to see what is going on -after all they are using playing cards and silver-dollar sized poker chips!