The first visible indicator that we will be able to see after Friday\’s indictments might be coming up in just a few hours. The National Heads-Up Poker Championship is the first new show to air in this new online-pokerless environment in the United States, with its debut episode set to air at 12p ET on NBC.
Could be interesting to see what the advertisements during the broadcast are. If the network\’s a bit slow in reacting it might be one of the last times we ever see a FullTilt or PokerStars advertisements on American airwaves. With the exception of a few WPT episodes in production or already in the can, it will almost certainly be one of the last times we see so many patches from the companies involved in Friday\’s indictments on players.
The most troubling possibility is that it would not air at all. Sound ridiculous? Consider the following: Kevmath had a retweet late Saturday night in which @buckwild33 noted that a scheduled WSOP Main Event 2007 marathon was not airing and boxing was shown in its place.
While it would certainly be a stretch to try and correlate this change in broadcast schedule on ESPN in some way with the upcoming NHUPC broadcaston NBC, it certainly should not be dismissed outright. There will be several small milestones that come up periodically in the coming days, weeks, and months, and we who are most affected might want to pay attention to their outcomes.
The information that we may be able to get from these indicators could provide a significant portion of the information that comes our way as things progress. Both the sites and the DOJ are likely headed for a process that is going to go very slowly, and information will trickle out slowly.
Again, this is just the direction that my thought process brought me in, and I don\’t claim to have any information that is unavailable to everyone else. I think the NHUPC is at least an interesting talking point and the first small event in a series of events that will eventually have effects on millions of people around the world. Now is the time to keep your eyes open.
On a side note, it\’s interesting to see how the title sponsor of the NHUPC, GoDaddy, could be the least toxic element at this point in time. Who would have thought two weeks ago that Godaddy\’s CEO\’s elephant hunting fiasco would become old news so quickly.