Is Poker A Sport?
Ok...The debate is on! This thing bout poker being a sport has apparently pissed off some sports editors and journalists as you can see in the article below but....if poker isnt a sport then what section of the newspaper does it belong? The game of poker and Texas Holdem has simply exploded not only online but offline as well. You dont have to go very far to find an article about poker and as a matter of fact...the article I wrote about yesterday was posted in the sports section of the NY Times...How's that for an authority.
Is bowling a sport? How bout badmitton or olympic water ballet (i'm not real sure what its called but it looks like a bunch of people trying to dance in a pool) I mean c'mon, why are these sports editors bitching about poker and not wanting to cover the story? Some people say it isn't a sport unless you sweat....SO what you are saying is that the sweat that rolls off your forehead when you call all-in on 1.2million with a king-10 suited isn't real? Poker is just as stressful and competitive as hitting a little white ball 300 yds so you can ride in a golf cart only to hit it another 300 yds.What's the difference, it takes luck and skill to compete at golf and the same goes for poker. Millions of people watch golf on tv and millions watch poker on tv. Golf pays good if you are lucky, poker pays great if you are good!
My opinion (yeah,I know you have one too but this is my blog) is poker definitely is a sport and if those sports editors don't want to cover the story....I know for sure that the bloggers will. Welcome to the next generation gentlemen.
UNION-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICES
July 18, 2005
Poker may be starting to rival traditional sports for attention – the recent World Series of Poker had 5,619 entrants and online poker took in an estimated $1 billion in revenue last year – but is it a sport itself?
Did you know that there are 2,598,960
different poker hands in a fifty-two card deck and that 2-3-4-5-7 offsuit cannot beat anything. You can win with a lot of hands but not that one
That question is a conundrum for those accustomed to defining sports in America, the sports editors of major newspapers. As poker has surged in popularity, sports editors find themselves in news meetings debating where poker news should go. For instance:
Bill Dwyre, sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, has no question about whether his section will cover poker. It won't.
"It will be a cold day in hell when ESPN sets the agenda for me," he said. "It's not a sport. We're not going to follow them."
"We've decided that poker is no more a sport than the 'Survivor' series or 'American Idol,' that it's more a creation of television and we'll be damned if television is going to dictate to us what we cover," Las Vegas Sun sports editor James Barger wrote in an e-mail.
"Because of the level of interest in it as measured by the TV ratings on ESPN, we've covered it," said Bill Eichenberger, deputy sports editor of Newsday on Long Island and a past president of Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE). "We're not staffing it, but we are running the wires every day. My sense of it from readers is that people are following it."
Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly took on televised poker in October and pronounced it lifeless. "Where is the thrill in watching guys with 300 cholesterol levels play cards and rattle their chip stacks 1,000 different ways?" he wrote. "What's ESPN going to put on next, the World Hairline-Receding Championships?"
Players' perspective
Poker players are as divided as journalists about whether the game that's sweeping ratings rates the title of sport.
"People compete at it. There's a discernible skill level. You can't throw in an average guy and expect him to do well," said Aaron Bartley, a pro poker player who lives in Las Vegas. "All things considered, it should be considered a sport."
Lee Munzer, a poker player and a columnist for "Card Player Magazine," said poker involves skill, but not enough activity to be a sport. "My feeling is if you don't sweat it's not a sport," he said.
Erick Fink, a physical therapist from Raleigh, N.C., who played in this year's World Series of Poker, thinks poker is not a sport and the debate about where it fits will fade with its popularity. "These sorts of outrageous numbers we're seeing now, I think that's unusual and it will decrease as something else becomes the new fad," he said. "But right now, it's like the biggest thing since the hula hoop."
Now there's another question: Is hula hoop a sport?
Is bowling a sport? How bout badmitton or olympic water ballet (i'm not real sure what its called but it looks like a bunch of people trying to dance in a pool) I mean c'mon, why are these sports editors bitching about poker and not wanting to cover the story? Some people say it isn't a sport unless you sweat....SO what you are saying is that the sweat that rolls off your forehead when you call all-in on 1.2million with a king-10 suited isn't real? Poker is just as stressful and competitive as hitting a little white ball 300 yds so you can ride in a golf cart only to hit it another 300 yds.What's the difference, it takes luck and skill to compete at golf and the same goes for poker. Millions of people watch golf on tv and millions watch poker on tv. Golf pays good if you are lucky, poker pays great if you are good!
My opinion (yeah,I know you have one too but this is my blog) is poker definitely is a sport and if those sports editors don't want to cover the story....I know for sure that the bloggers will. Welcome to the next generation gentlemen.
UNION-TRIBUNE NEWS SERVICES
July 18, 2005
Poker may be starting to rival traditional sports for attention – the recent World Series of Poker had 5,619 entrants and online poker took in an estimated $1 billion in revenue last year – but is it a sport itself?
Did you know that there are 2,598,960
different poker hands in a fifty-two card deck and that 2-3-4-5-7 offsuit cannot beat anything. You can win with a lot of hands but not that one
That question is a conundrum for those accustomed to defining sports in America, the sports editors of major newspapers. As poker has surged in popularity, sports editors find themselves in news meetings debating where poker news should go. For instance:
Bill Dwyre, sports editor of the Los Angeles Times, has no question about whether his section will cover poker. It won't.
"It will be a cold day in hell when ESPN sets the agenda for me," he said. "It's not a sport. We're not going to follow them."
"We've decided that poker is no more a sport than the 'Survivor' series or 'American Idol,' that it's more a creation of television and we'll be damned if television is going to dictate to us what we cover," Las Vegas Sun sports editor James Barger wrote in an e-mail.
"Because of the level of interest in it as measured by the TV ratings on ESPN, we've covered it," said Bill Eichenberger, deputy sports editor of Newsday on Long Island and a past president of Associated Press Sports Editors (APSE). "We're not staffing it, but we are running the wires every day. My sense of it from readers is that people are following it."
Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly took on televised poker in October and pronounced it lifeless. "Where is the thrill in watching guys with 300 cholesterol levels play cards and rattle their chip stacks 1,000 different ways?" he wrote. "What's ESPN going to put on next, the World Hairline-Receding Championships?"
Players' perspective
Poker players are as divided as journalists about whether the game that's sweeping ratings rates the title of sport.
"People compete at it. There's a discernible skill level. You can't throw in an average guy and expect him to do well," said Aaron Bartley, a pro poker player who lives in Las Vegas. "All things considered, it should be considered a sport."
Lee Munzer, a poker player and a columnist for "Card Player Magazine," said poker involves skill, but not enough activity to be a sport. "My feeling is if you don't sweat it's not a sport," he said.
Erick Fink, a physical therapist from Raleigh, N.C., who played in this year's World Series of Poker, thinks poker is not a sport and the debate about where it fits will fade with its popularity. "These sorts of outrageous numbers we're seeing now, I think that's unusual and it will decrease as something else becomes the new fad," he said. "But right now, it's like the biggest thing since the hula hoop."
Now there's another question: Is hula hoop a sport?
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