Q&A: Steve Lipscomb, Founder, President and CEO of the World Poker Tour and Jeff Smith, VP, Product Development of STATS LLC - January 2008  

This month it’s an S&T double-header as we explore the new deal between global sports information provider STATS LLC, and worldwide poker entertainment company WPT Enterprises (WPTE). WPTE is the creator of the World Poker Tour (WPT), a television show based on a series of high-stakes poker tournaments that airs on the Travel Channel in the US and is scheduled to begin broadcasting on GSN in early 2008.
STATS, jointly owned by the Associated Press and News Corporation, provides data collection and analysis for more than 55,000 events per year and 85 sports leagues including Major League Baseball, National Football League, and National Basketball Association. Through a deal announced in January 2008, STATS will deliver statistics and information from every past and present WPT final table. WPT/STATS data results are available in the WPT player database exclusively on www.worldpokertour.com with new updates following each tournament, allowing poker fans and players to study intricacies of the game in ways never available before.
S&T spoke to Steve Lipscomb, Founder, President and CEO of the World Poker Tour (SL; pictured above right) and Jeff Smith, VP, Product Development of STATS LLC (JF; pictured below right) about why this deal is important to poker.

What do you think is behind the increasing popularity of poker globally?

SL: “It’s very simple. World Poker Tour launched on television in 2003 and reinvented the sport of poker on television. When we hit the airwaves in the US, it really was a whole new game. Our successful format has now been replicated in multiple countries globally and really is exciting, dramatic television.”

They say that imitation is the best form of flattery, but do you think there is a danger of over-exposure of poker programming on television now?

SL: “There’s definitely over-saturation now and bad poker shows can definitely dilute the market. Loving or hating a television format doesn’t seem to matter much. When [reality format show] ‘Survivor’ hit the airwaves here for example, suddenly lots of replica shows sprung up the next year. Yet Survivor continues to exist and now most of those other shows have gone. I think that’s what has happened with the poker television market. We have already blanketed the globe with our show and that has spawned imitators in every market. In all television, the bad shows go by the wayside and people find the good stuff. The programming that we do continues to rise to the top in just about every market. What’s happening in the UK though is interesting in that the poker-programming market has become advertiser-led, with broadcasters allowing online poker companies to pay to put their shows on air, no matter how bad the content.”

How will WPTE continue to stand out from the crowd?

SL: “What’s great about the WPT format is that it is a learning show. Everybody who plays poker wants to get better and if you watch our show then you do get better. We’ve always used on-screen graphics to enhance the show and educate the viewers. The relationship with STATS therefore is the next inevitable step in legitimising poker as a global sports phenomenon. In every sport it’s important to compare one guy to the next. And in poker, there will never be one player dominating, like a Tiger Woods or a Pele, due to the role that Lady Luck plays. At the WPT, ever year we reinvent ourselves, not just through the look and the feel but literally how you analyse the game and how you tell stories within the game. If I can continue to make a programme that surprises me and sets a high standard of storytelling, then people are going to continue to watch it. Gimmicks that are introduced just to be different are never going to attract a lasting audience.”

How important is technology to the WPT?

SL: “Truly it was technology that made it possible to do the things that transformed poker for this market. The first bit of technology was the ability to have small cameras in the rails that allowed us to see players’ cards. The other technology that we really brought to the fore was putting statistical information on the screen so that you can follow the action at home. We literally used the editing tools at the level we weren’t even supposed to do yet in order to make the graphics interactive. Technology drove the development of poker on television in a phenomenal way. And then if you look at the online side, people being able to play poker at home has also grown the poker community at a whole new level. This great game that steamed up the Mississippi River and became a huge part of US culture is now steaming across the globe because we can drive it through television and the internet and we can create communities about this sport that has infinite nuances allowing people to talk about it over and over again.”

So, what are the specifics of the deal with STATS?

JS: “STATS will compile the aggregate actions of each final table hand in the WPTE’s proprietary databases featuring over 100 tournaments in WPT history, as well as all tournaments going forward. This includes details of who has played, who has chased and who has won. STATS’ information will detail ‘playing style’ along with situational analysis, breakdowns and trends for a more complete portrait of each WPT star. Examples include how often a player plays a pot; how often they are raising a pot pre-flop; bluff percentages; how often they take a hand to ‘showdown’; and the average bet size relative to the pot by player. You can sort the data by statistics as well as pulling up data for a player. Other applications such as luck factor will be added over the next few months.”

What do you consider to be the value of this application?

JS: “[As Steve Lipscomb says above] WPTE was very interested in legitimising poker as a sport and creating a standard set of statistics that everyone knows and understands and looks at, just like in other sports. Such data can be used to enhance the enjoyment of fans and players and give them new perspectives on the games. Putting statistics together in this way will allow poker to be looked at in the same light as other sports. We also send specific data to the production crews to enhance their broadcasts. The data can be used on any platform to distribute information to fans.”

SL: “You can go to our website now and see a whole wealth of data on players for free including every hand that’s played and that’s a big part of the future of poker coverage. Gimmicks won’t be here two years from now, but our application will be. You can use our application to help build yourself up to be a great superstar in our sport – you can’t do that in other sports. The next step will be to allow you to compare your own data with that of the great players.”

What other sports would you enjoy applying this technology to?

JS: “Darts would be a great one, but in fact this data package could be applied to any sport out there. We’ve recently worked with both Mixed Martial Arts and NASCAR for example, highlighting the diversity of this application.”

Are we likely to ever see WPT data merged with that from the World Series of Poker or other poker properties in a central database?

SL: “People always seem to pit us [the WPT and WSOP] against each other, but we are very much complimentary properties. Whether we like it or not, the poker community is going to push us to objectify the standards and give people something that they can really use to compare players across all competitions, as that really is the next step. There’s only so long that you can have people standing next to each other and saying “I’m the greatest player”, “No, I’m the greatest player”. We need to create the means to have the dialogue to build the sport and the fanbase for that sport. No matter what the sport is, there’s an array of statistics that people will talk about as being the most important.”

Steve, has the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act affected your business in any way?

SL: “It has been a very interesting time to launch a new online poker application when we can’t participate in the most lucrative part of it here [in the US]. But that’s the way it goes and we believe this sport will be around for a good many years and we are positioning ourselves to help grow it and help people enjoy it. Regarding the UIGEA specifically, it has virtually no affect on the online poker market in the US as there has been no enforcement at all regarding people who want to play. The big sites here are still taking bets and doing it with impunity and making exactly the same equations. What as been a good thing however is that some of the clutter on television that was supplied by online gaming companies has gone away, and the shows that rely on good content rather than money can flourish.”

What will be the next big thing after poker in your opinion? How do you rate the chances of televised Backgammon for example?

SL: “I’ll go on record and say that I’ll eat my shirt if that succeeds on television, as well as most other games. People are always coming to us with ideas for Blackjack programming for example, but it’s just not that interesting. Most of what people do when they try and create those shows is try and replicate poker, even though they are choosing games that are not as interesting as poker.”

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