Every time I tune in to the WSOP, it seems like more and more players are covered in logos from different advertisers. And I always just chalked this up to the sponsors of players making them wear certain logos for different things. But after reading an article in the Las Vegas Sun, I found out a whole lot more about the advertising business that goes on at the WSOP feature tables.
This article was actually pretty cool as the writer, Steve Silver, went into a discussion about how ESPN selects their feature table in WSOP events. Contrary to what many people think, ESPN doesn’t pick tables based on an individual or even just a couple of players. Instead, ESPN picks its tables based on the entire make-up of the table which means they must select an entire group which will be entertaining. If the table starts to go lame then they need to wait till a break until they can switch the spotlight to another table.
However, it is against a player’s best interest to have the spotlight moved because they often get paid as much as $10,000 for wearing logos of certain companies on their clothes if they’re on the feature table. Most of the time these logos are from the biggest poker rooms in the world including Full Tilt, Ultimate Bet, and obviously PokerStars.
The only problem for players though is that they can’t change their clothes or sew patches onto their shirts right before heading over to the featured table. Ian Schechter found this out the hard way when he was going over to the featured table, but wasn’t allowed to put on a PokerStars patch. In the end, this rule cost Schechter an extra $10,000 which just goes to show how much it pays to be prepared.