A comment from the USAToday.com sports editor regarding commentors complaints about the “spoiler” of the WSOP Main Event winner in the headline:

To our readers:

We regret offending the handful of commenters who believe we should either not be reporting on the outcome of a news event like the World Series of Poker, or should have dumbed-down the headline so as to not give away the outcome on the Sports front page. However, we believe you are in the minority.

The traffic to the site today — in which the coverage of the World Series of Poker has received more page views than any other story in Sports — suggests the majority of readers are interested in knowing the outcome now. We confront a similar issue every two years with the Olympics, in which some users suggest we are ruining their evening by covering the outcome of news as it happens instead of letting them learn who won by watching television’s tape-delayed coverage. In both cases we feel we are serving the greater good with immediate coverage.

In this day and age, in which information is available everywhere and much of it instantaneously, it is almost impossible for a news organization to NOT report news when it knows it — because someone else will. Indeed, USA TODAY is not the only news organization reporting the outcome of the final table. Fox, CBS, Yahoo, every Website that subscribes to the Associated Press, radio, TV… even ESPN itself has coverage of who won. Unless you get your sports news from www.headinthesand.com, and only that site, how were you planning to make it through the day consuming news and information without stumbling upon the final table outcome? If USA TODAY does not tell you who won, we know that most users will just go elsewhere to find out. Not every user wants to wait, and not every user plans to watch it on tape-delayed television.

Similarly, we would be at a competitive disadvantage to tell users in our headline that the event is over without revealing who won. While some users may have entered our site at our homepage or Sports front and discovered the news, almost half of our traffic these days comes from search engines — people who increasingly start at Google or Yahoo and type in search terms. The more specifics we get into our headlines, including the name of the winner, the more likely we can attract the audience that is searching for that news.

It’s not the same as revealing the outcome of a book or a movie. That’s pure entertainment. This is entertainment too, but it’s also news.

As to the issue of whether poker coverage belongs in Sports or not — we can debate all night long whether poker should be considered a sport. We take no position on that. By placing it here, we are merely indicating that people who follow sports, moreso than other sections of USA TODAY, are most likely to be interested in the World Series of Poker.

Speaking of Thrillist … my other, non-poker gig … one thing we’ve learned over there is that Thrillist readers care way more about night clubs, booze, restaurants, race cars, and tiddy bars than they ever do about poker.

So I was a little surprised to get the numbers back from last week’s edition, where an item about Phil Hellmuth’s new website for his clothing line was the highest performer. Really? Yep … A decidedly non-pokery readership found the PokerBrat’s T-shirts and Pep Pills more intriguing than an MGM bar, a new gambling-themed wine, casino decor, and a corner of P-Ho where blackjack dealers wear lingerie:

From Thrillist:

Wear: PokerBrat Clothing
These surprisingly subtle tees come from the John McEnroe of poker, 11-time WSOP champ Phil Hellmuth, with highlights including “Poker Tree” (”grow that chip pile from a toothpick to a lumberyard”), and “Poker Skater”, harkening back to his U of Wisconsin transpo from barroom games back to his dorm. Less tastefully, Hellmuth also hawks books, DVDs, and “Go Heads-Up” energy pills, guaranteed to keep you at the table long enough to lose your subtle tee.
Check out shirts and more at PokerBrat.com

They really are some pretty cool shirts. But perhaps the scary thing is clicking through the site, where Hellmuth tries his hand at pokery grocery-store romance. Click below to read about a poker-bratty encounter with the woman who would later become his wife:

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photo: Flipchip / LasVegasVegas
Ylon Schwartz, en route to the final table.

For all those negatively noting that the delayed final table isn’t bringing the hype it promised … patience, patience … it’s coming: The New York Times just took note of their hometown favorite, Ylon Schwartz. He’s an interesting character — basically quasi-degenerate meets chess wizard with a soft spot in his heart for kids. His dad left when he was age 2, and his mom died five years ago. He got his start in the New York underground, going 2-for-2 in his first tournaments to win $12,000, giving him the bankroll with which, perhaps unknowingly, he would embark on a new career.

Since Schwartz’s making the WSOP final table, his father has been in touch to be his best friend, and he has basically told him to fuck off.

These are the kind of compelling stories that will come out, regardless of what we in the poker media do or do not have to say about it. And this is why, prediction here: the Live-ish broadcast of the WSOP main event final table on ESPN will be a huge ratings hit.

Remember, the Olympics spends four years and billions of dollars generating, at best, a few months of hype around a few weeks of activity. By scale, it’s only realistic to expect a few months of work (and a few million dollars?) to generate just a few days of hype around an event that takes place over a day-and-a-half.

Hmm, I tend to think poker players should try to step out of their little-big poker worlds every so often, if only to keep a check on reality. But yikes, maybe not … when a Seattle columnist stepped into a game to get some old-white-men takes on the presidential election … well let’s just say at least a few players behaved like jive-ass crackas weren’t exactly great ambassadors for the game.

(But hey, real people, real life, right? Isn’t being able to take money from the sketchy part of why we play?)

Play with the pros for free on FullTiltPoker.net.

Bill Maher, on the greatness of Vietnamese poker players, about 51 seconds in:

(Funny.)

Once specific thing from the Bloomberg article Jen references below that caught my eye … it was the first time I had ever seen a numerical breakdown of the PPA’s money. (I know these are mostly public figures, because of the nature of political finance … but as far as I know, none of us had bothered to look.)

The poker alliance, headed by former New York Republican Senator Alfonse D’Amato, spent $729,750 on lobbying during the first half of 2008, after spending $900,000 in all of 2007. Its political action committee, PokerPAC, began April 11 and raised $43,226 through Aug. 12.

Cool. Rough math … $50 here, $20 there, $5k from Howard Lederer … yep, it all seems to add up to me.

Here’s an updated article from the non-poker world about this Republican platform plank. I take much interest in what the non-poker commenters have to say — seems they are starting to understand our single-issue/special interest even though they are just starting to see the tip of the online poker iceberg.

Reason Magazine is on top of it, too.

And take a look at how the comments are running within their own party about the issue. (Not sure this link will take you directly to the page I am looking at, but do a search for “gambling” and you will see that our point of view has about 99 people in favor, and 1 against,)

In case your Friday night included something more interesting than watching TV (mine didn’t), I’m here to tell you that the summer Olympics “started” with the Opening Ceremonies tonight. Actually, the ceremonies took place about half a day ago in Beijing, but NBC is presenting them in a “plausibly live” format during prime time. Hmmm … where have I heard that term (”plausibly live”) before? 

For 17 days, the Olympics will dominate NBC’s networks here in the United States, and fill up enough news coverage to finally give Americans a break from the seemingly endless presidential election. (Other countries are fortunate in the fact that they generally get less nationalistic — and often more interesting — coverage than NBC provides here in the U.S.)

During that time, I’ll be writing about some things the poker industry can learn from the Olympics. Not the game itself, or the silly notion that poker should be added to the Olympics. I’m mainly concerned with the media coverage, and what we as poker reporters can learn from it. 

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Was just watching a little early Fox News, and the weekend hosts got visibly excited about the World Series of Poker. Their hedline: “Average Joes Taking Over.” Wha? Apparently the Fox reporters/interns aren’t reading Wicked Chops. Idiots But regardless, dead money is dead money, right?

“That’s why we like it so much, because the underdog can win!” cooed Ainsley Earhardt. Coming up is one of those Average Joes, Dennis Phillips. From there the Fox-branded morning sunshine went on to a story about cadaver dogs being called in to search for a two-year-old girl, and then the weather. My personal chills subsided.

Go delayed final table!

UPDATES/LIVE-BLOG

Interview starts with “This is wonderful stuff, the World Series of Poker”

Dennis appears, wearing STL ballcap and Pokerstars.net logo on his shirt. (Boo, St. Louis!)

He refused sponsor money for his cap.

“I’m a 53-year-old truck salesman, I’m not going to go around wearing a hat backwards. It’s just not going to happen.”

Headline under random, low-quality footage from the WSOP (as if the lighting situation in the Amazon room were new to them or something) — Poker-Palooza: Average Poker Guy Takes Vegas

The key to his success at the WSOP was having fun the whole way.

Dennis is not married and has no kids.

The Fox News staff is rooting for him.

After a break, the extended crew comes back and has a discussion about how amazing his poker face is. They all give impressions, then asks who plays — I’m shocked that the two dudes who are so excited about poker say they don’t — and then they turn to Courtney Friel. She says that while he was hostess of the World Poker Tour, she herself wasn’t very good because she gave away her excitement over big hands.

They end the show with: “Go All-in with Fox & Friends!”