Top 10 Ways for ESPN to reclaim the magic of the WSOP Part 1 of 2
Watching the World Series of Poker coverage progress over the years (or perhaps regress, if you are of the same opinion as me) it seems to me that the telecast has grown incredibly stale since 2003 -when it was a groundbreaking poker program-and ESPN needs to consider mixing things up quite a bit if they want to recapture the magic of the 2003 WSOP Main Event.
So, with that in mind, here are the first five of 10 ways for ESPN to enhance its World Series of Poker coverage:
#1 - Add another voice to the broadcast team.
I’m actually a fan of the friendly banter between Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, and can deal with the sophomoric humor of Chad, but I also want a little poker talk going on in the booth, and sadly these two do not provide any information more insightful than what the cards I can already see are. ESPN should add an “expert” player to the team, such as Joe Stapleton who does a fantastic job of dissecting hands for the PokerStars Big Game.
#2 - Montages.
Obviously one of the primary concerns of the producers is the time constraints, and how to get more hands into the final broadcast. One way would be to add montages, of important but unexciting hands -something along the lines of showing a player 3-bet defending their blind three orbits in a row, or a player folding 15 hands straight. By using a montage this could be done in mere seconds, and the viewers would have a better idea of the overall table dynamic.
#3 - Statistics and Hand Counts.
This is my biggest pet peeve with the ESPN coverage. It’s such a simple thing to do (and they actually used a hand count in the years before the hole-card cam) and would, like point #2, enhance the viewers understanding of the table dynamics. Simply put a player’s VPIP, PFR, and other notable stats under their name as they are making their decision.
#4 - Better prep work by the broadcast team.
This goes along with Point #1, and THIS does irritate me about McEachern and Chad; it’s almost as if they just show up and record the broadcast! Wouldn’t it be beneficial to know that some of these “amateurs” and “online kids” are actually Poker Pros, some making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year???
#5 - Raise the Buy-In.
It’s time. There is no reason why we can’t raise the buy-in of the WSOP Main Event without affecting its legacy. Not only would this make the tournament all the more interesting if players were anteing-up $20,000 or $50,000 of their money, but it would also help solve what is becoming a logistical nightmare for the WSOP staff. By simply changing the key metric for the success of the Main Event to total prize-pool (or first-place prize-money) instead of the number of entrants the change would only be a blip on the radar for the first year.
Stay tuned for Part 2 of this article.
