The new age of poker sponsorships Part 1

Back in the heyday of the Poker Boom, from about 2005-2008, if you were fortunate enough to win one of the numerous poker tournaments that featured a million dollar first-place prize you were almost assured of being picked-up by one online poker site or another as a sponsored player. Just making the WSOP Main Event final table during this period basically assured you of a sponsorship deal. Unfortunately for poker players this is simply not the case anymore.

Sponsorships are a lot harder to come by in today’s poker economy and it seems that online poker sites are starting to correct their marketing mistakes during the Poker Boom. Big wins are no longer the sole criteria for receiving a sponsorship, and players don’t seem to have adjusted to this quite yet, as they continue to chase sponsorship dollars by playing a high-volume of tournaments, sometimes negatively impacting their bottom-line in doing so.

Sponsored players are now being vetted, and in addition to a resume a player needs to also bring personality, ethics, and intangibles to the table before they are even considered for a sponsorship*. Honestly, as Brick & Mortar casinos start to take over the online poker world, sponsorships are going to become even harder to procure as marketing dollars go elsewhere.

If ESPN has taught us anything it’s that a famous poker player can be created from a so-so talent through a good story-line (Chris Moneymaker, Dennis Phillips) far easier than a stud player can be given a good story (Ben Lamb, Allen Cunningham, and Dan Harrington are three examples of people who should be in the upper echelon of poker names) and turned into a household name.

So what should a player in today’s poker economy focus on if they want to become a sponsored pro? In Part 2 of this series I will go over my suggestions for poker players looking to procure a sponsorship from wither online poker rooms or even from other companies associated with the poker world.

Read Part 2 Here