Poker has stranglehold on nation through ESPN

By Matt Nascone
mailto:mnascone@theplainsman.com

January 20, 2005

What makes people believe that poker is a sport?

Just because ESPN shows it 24/7 does not automatically make it a sport.

Sport involves sweat, tears and hard work, even though many would argue that poker takes hard work and that tears are evoked.

These people must not have ever played sports on any level. Sports such as baseball, football and basketball all require the participant to get his body in shape.

You cannot tell me that the past two winners of the World Series of Poker work out on a regular basis.

Granted, the game does take a lot of skill and cunning wit, but it does not require its players to go through any physical strain. I know the tensions that can come from playing a game of Texas Hold ‘Em, but I cannot compare that to the strain of pitching a nine-inning baseball game or going strong for 60 minutes in a football game.

I love to play poker in my free time, but it just gets me when people consider this card game a sport.

Sport is defined as “an activity involving physical exertion and skill that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often undertaken competitively,” according to the dictionary.

Now what physical exertion is there in the motion of throwing clay chips into the middle of a card table?

This is not work; this is play. And it is not enough that they show the actual game being played, but now ESPN has a new original series out, “TILT.”

I am a huge fan of movies such as “Junction Boys” or dramas such as “Playmakers,” but those are about sports, not games.

Extremes are never good, and ESPN has taken the poker angle to the extreme now with “TILT,” a show detailing the underground world of gambling and deceit surrounding the game of poker.

There are so many people obsessed with poker now because of super normal guys like Chris Moneymaker and Greg “Fossilman” Raymer.

These guys are normal, everyday working men who entered through Internet poker tournaments.

I just hope the craze of the poker world subsides soon.

I get tired of reruns of the previous year's WSOP when I go to ESPN for the latest sports news.

I am not a big fan of the extreme sports, but I would much rather see them than poker. I like poker for what it is — a game.

I think ESPN should stick to what they are really, really, really good at — covering the real sports that people tune into the channel to see.

ESPN considers itself the worldwide leader in sports. The key word in that sentence was sport. I believe that if they continue to acknowledge poker as a sport then more people will believe that it is a sport.

Poker does not belong on television; it belongs in the casinos. The coverage tried to expand into the other realms of the poker world in 2004.

The main event was not the only portion of the World Series covered. The other versions of poker were recognized with airtime this year.

As exciting as all these are... yeah sorry, forgot. I don't like any of them. Even people that like watching Hold ‘Em were not that enthused with all the other versions of poker.

But getting back to my original point of poker not being a sport that should be covered by the world's best sports network. Like I said, I love poker, but a “sport” that has more overweight people than in-shape people is not really considered a sport in my book.

Viewers of the best network on television, or at least myself, don't want to see this when we could see something else.

College basketball is the most exciting sport on television now and could easily fill the slot of “TILT” on Thursdays at 8 p.m. This is definitely a better programming choice than a show about a game with no sport quality to it.

I may seem to be a little bitter about this whole topic, but I just believe in showing sports on the sports channel. Poker should stay on the Discovery Channel and whichever other channels it is on besides ESPN.

This is only one man's opinion, and it will take a lot more than that to change the schedule of the great ESPN.