I don’t know about Bellagio Cups II & III, because I wasn’t covering them. But there was a physical Bellagio Cup at one point! (And presumably, it still exists somewhere at Amnon Filippi’s house.)

GSN paid WPTE $6.9 million (excluding any ratings bonuses) in CASH for WPT Season 6.

Suffice to say, FSN may have paid a “rights fee”, but it probably did not pay any substantial amounts of “cash” (beyond the symbolic amount of “$1″), to WPTE for WPT Season 7.

Just as “revenue” does not necessarily equate “cash” in the world of accounting, a TV “rights fee” does not necessarily equate “cash” in the entertainment business.

FSN is owned and operated by FOX Television, which is majority-owned and operated by News Corporation Limited.

I do know that the WPT/NewsCorp deal involves much more than a simple “time buy” by WPTE on FSN (otherwise, FSN wouldn’t have been granted a “license”, i.e. the rights, to WPT Season 7).

There has to be a lot more involved in the barter arrangement between WPTE and NewsCorp for WPT Season 7, including swaps of advertising inventory (i.e. mySpace getting an ad sign board in WPT Arena), not to mention possible international distribution of WPT Season 7 in some territories on NewsCorp-affiliated sports TV networks i.e. Sky Sports United Kingdom, Sky Sports Italia, Sky Sports New Zealand, FOX Sports Australia, FOX Sports Latin America (in Spanish only), FOX Sports Israel, FOX Sports Africa, FOX Sports Turkey, FOX Sports Middle East, ESPN Latin America-Brazil and ESPN Brasil (both 33% owned by NewsCorp under a joint venture with Globosat and ESPN), J Sports in Japan (operated by Sumitomo with both ESPN and NewsCorp being minority shareholders), and ESPN STAR Sports (ESS) in Asia ex-middle east (joint venture between NewsCorp’s STAR TV and Disney/ESPN, with NewsCorp being the managing partner).