Why the Epic Poker League failed and what lessons can be learned

There have been plenty of sports-related endeavors that failed to make it past Season 1 (or that were seen as inevitable failures by that point in time) and the Epic Poker League surely falls into that category. The writing was on the wall for the EPL’s Chapter 11 filing by Event #2 in September, and despite the hopes of Jeffrey Pollack and Annie Duke the league doesn’t seem to be a candidate for resurrection.

But what makes the Epic Poker League different than say the numerous football leagues like the XFL or the WFL, the Professional Blackjack Tour, EliteXC, or women’s leagues like the ABL or the WUSA soccer league, is that the Epic Poker League offered nothing new to the conversation. The EPL basically tried to do everything the Professional Poker Tour (PPT) did some seven years ago, only on a far grander and far more expensive scale.

The closest parallel to the Epic Poker League I can think of is the XFL, the Vince McMahon created football league that spent oodles of money right off the bat but essentially was offering an inferior version of the NFL. The same holds true for Epic Poker; the product was indistinguishable from ESPN or WPT telecasts in terms of production values, and despite the EPL’s efforts to “glitz” it up with things like the Global Poker Index, charity events, a Facebook game, and huge overlays and incentives for players to attend, but the end product was your typical poker tournament.

So what lessons can be learned from the failures of the Epic Poker League? [Remember, this is opinion!]

Know the History

The PPT should have been the model that the Epic Poker League avoided, not followed. What the EPL did reminds me of the pizza shop (in a bad location with no parking) that has changed owners 10-times in the last 20 years, but someone new comes along and thinks they are the person who is going to make it a success, it just needs a few new ideas and some hard work to make it happen -and three months later the shop is on to owner #22.

Don’t try to be the Top Dog right out of the gate

Instead of trying to create THE POKER TOURNAMENT right from the get go, which caused them to spend boatloads of cash, the EPL should have at least tried building the EPL from the ground up. What would have been wrong with hosting a $5,000-buy-in event (that was raked!) open to the top 1,000 players? Down the road the EPL could have added a $20,000 buy-in High-Roller tournament at each stop, open to fewer players if they wanted to.

Timing is EVERYTHING

After Black Friday the Epic Poker League really needed to rethink their plan for Season 1. The poker economy was decimated, and some of the game’s biggest names decided to spend some time anyway from poker – some voluntarily and some involuntarily. Annie Duke is plugged into the poker world well enough to realize that Black Friday put a severe cramp in players and their backers, and there was simply no way attendance in a $20,000 event wasn’t going to be severely hurt.

When your goal is somewhere between 100-150 players per event, the loss of 20 potential players is HUGE!