Mark Langner

At Current Low, WPT Enterprises Still Not Worth a Gamble

A couple of questions:

1. You state: <i>But will the World Poker Tour be affected by the ban, at least indirectly? Of course it will. If no one is allowed to play online poker anymore, interest in the WPT television shows will certainly wane.</i> Is this opinion or fact? If fact (which it appears given your use of the declarative) what is your source for making this assertion and to what degree should we expect it to wane? If its opinion - why do you hold this opinion, is there research that shows on-line gaming has been a driver of television ratings, or are you just guessing? I guess I don't understand the linkage between on-line poker on TV watching - or if there even is one - obviously there are other places to play poker, and one would assume that a certain number of users would watch it for the entertainment factor... is on-line poker playing a big driver of TV watching?

2. Your comment about the potential profitability of the television show seems inconsistent with the new legal realities and your argument that WPT will suffer from the loss of on-line gambling watchers... The quote from Lipscomb that you boxed is from Sept. 6 which is pre-ban. One would assume that post ban the on-line companies that have been buying TV time to put their poker programming on US TV will stop, as will their sponsorship of U.S. based poker tourneys - as they would be advertising to customers that can't play so what's the point. That would leave less competition for WPT's programming both from a distribution standpoint (assuming that poker can draw more of an audience than other programming choices for the broadcasters or at the very least kick a negotiating leg out from under the broadcasters when they are renegotiating the next season of World Poker Tour) and from a product development standpoint... But you can't really say the programming will suffer from lost viewers due to the lack of on-line gambling at the same time that you argue that on-line gambling companies buying up TV time will impact the value of WPTE programming... so which is it? I suppose you could argue that the program will be less valuable becuase no on-line gamblers means less viewership - but then that goes back to the first question of what is the empirical evidence that viewership is tied to the number of on-line gamblers...