Poker is a lot of things. It is a game, it is a profession, it is an excuse to wear dark glasses indoors, and some people think it is a sport. While it may very well be all these things, what it is most is a business; an industry. To be completely honest it is an industry that the World Poker Tour has been having some trouble competing in for the last few years. For the most part they have most of the ingredients to get back on top of the poker television heap, but they seem to be lacking one thing. A personality who can crossover into the celebrity obsessed mainstream.
While it will be painful for many in their corporate offices to admit, they had the beginnings of this with Shana Hiatt. She was on the radar of a lot of people who knew nothing about the game of Texas Hold'em. While it may not be their fault that she went away, they also had Courtney Friel who had limitless value as someone who could be sold to a mainstream audience. Today she is working for Fox News and gets face time on the O’Reilly Factor, the biggest news program on cable television. They just let Courtney get away from them. Now that they are under new management, perhaps they will now be looking to the future with eye out for a hostess or commentator that has mainstream appeal.
While ideally the poker industry as a whole needs to develop their “Tiger Woods” or “Peyton Manning”, in short, that player who is instantly recognizable even without a pair of cards in their hand, there is no way that person would be exclusive property of the WPT. They need to find their John Madden or their Erin Andrews. Fortunately there are people available, and if they decide to develop this sort of personality, they have plenty of options.
