The Effect of Poker on the Television Industry

The sport of poker has gambled its way to compete on primetime television. The "ESPN summer series, out-rated baseball throughout the dog days and playoff chases" (Quindt), and the Travel Channel, also affected by poker, has tripled their number of viewers for the World Poker Tour compared to last year's numbers. The game of most popularity is Texas Hold'em, but on television, in movies, and in books they play No Limit Texas Hold'em. The only …

…million"(Dempsey) tuned in for the championship round of the World Series of Poker. The background information on these interesting players lets us feel like we know them. Just consider if you watched poker without the micro cam, back then it "was like having McEnroe and Boris Becker playing Wimbledon in the dark, then turning on the lights after the point was over to see who won. You never knew what skills they possessed"(Goehner).