Sorry, but as regards this issue
I am the only person who spoke up here against PokerGo's acquiring of all
wsop materials (including historic) and that it was to the detriment of poker when it first happened. Regarding professional poker players, the only player I know that took a brief stand was Doug Polk.
I have detailed my views several times here and the fact is most didn't care.
Poker Orifice - you are correct, PokerGo streamed more live this year than they have in previous years, and it is not a high expense to subscribe. But, I will not subscribe on moral grounds as I dislike Cary Katz and the manner his family built their fortune, which was student loans. As I have noted before the idea Katz is making high roller buy-ins on the backs of students, many of which should never have been encouraged to take loans, does not sit well for me.
I am not going to go on a long tirade here, in part because I now believe that the poker industry is not truly concerned with expanding the game (this I have also explained previously) and most within the industry are happy with their slice of the poker pie. That said what I do dislike on a wider note is how both PokerGo and GG Poker have muscled into the core of the game via WSOP when, for instance, the ownership of GG Poker remains somewhat opaque (again, no one seems to really care).
But I will leave with a curious admission (mistake?) which Remko Rinkema made during the Main Event Bubble stream which showed how much PokerGo has restricted viewership. First, as I have pointed out before, the WSOP streams which previously went live to You Tube regularly attracted world viewing figures of hundreds of thousands every day - the entire WSOP racking up tens of millions of views. Further they remained on You Tube where you could watch a Main Event from any year from start to finish at ones leisure.
However, during the Main Event bubble stream, one of the most watched few hours of the entire event (perhaps only eclipsed by the final few tables) Remko was pushing for likes as they do every stream. Then Remko said something before thinking (I presume this a gaffe) he stated the viewing numbers on I believe Twitch, but then PokerGo and YouTube.
What he said was that they presently had 2,000 viewers on Twitch, that they had 2,000 on PokerGO and they 40,000 on YouTube. I was astonished he gave the figures out (providing it was true and accurate and not a verbal gaffe) because what it indicated was so few were watching on PokerGo itself. Now, you could read any number of things into this but I think it hard to make any case this is a positive for poker itself and helping the industry in any sense.
For one thing (not that this would happen) it would be really interesting to see the average, behind paywall, daily figures PokerGo enjoys and compare them to say Hustler Casino live streams let alone EPT live streams which of course go free to air as one would say.
As I love me some Alexandra Botez I am happy she spoke up, and she appears to have gotten quite a lot of support!
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