Poker Industry Player Profile: Jeffrey Pollock - WSOP Commissioner

Jeffrey Pollack knew a thing or two about marketing major league sports when Harrah's Entertainment asked him if to try his hand at running the company's newly acquired poker tournament.

The tournament in question was a legend-in-its-own-time thing known as the World Series of Poker. When Harrah's bought the WSOP just weeks before the start of the 2004 event, the company's strategists knew they had something with potential. They knew it could get bigger. They just did not know how big it could be.

Neither did Pollack who was persuaded to join Harrah's months after the World Series had been bought from the financially troubled Horseshoe Casino in Las Vegas. He was hired as vice president of sports and entertainment and eventually got the title of World Series Commissioner as it became apparent people needed to know there was a specific individual in charge of World Series planning.

But Pollack's prior experience as a marketing executive with such diverse major sports as NASCAR and the NBA, and his role as president and publisher for "The Sports Business Daily," a must-read for decisionmakers in the sports, entertainment and television industries, helped equip him with the vision to recognize potential.

Poker's appeal reached into all demographic groups without exception. There was no better known name than the World Series of Poker. Talk about a world of untapped potential.

The possibilities were becoming apparent even as Pollack was settling into his job. The World Series main event, that $10,000 buyin no limit Texas hold'em game, grew from 839 entries in 2003 to 2,576 in 2004, the first year in which Harrah's can claim responsibility for anything, to 5,619 in 2005. And then the big leap - to 8,773 entries in 2006 as global marketing efforts kicked in.

The big numbers were due in no small part to Pollack's ability to think big and then persuade those above him to give his ideas a chance. But that's what Pollack had been hired to do, create an event with a financial impact that would resonate at the company's bottom line.

Over the last several years, the World Series has become more than a poker tournament, or more accurately a series of poker tournaments under one big tent.

Top executives at Harrah's have always been fond of referencing their myriad "brands," brands that were a lineup of hotel names as Harrah's acquired Showboat, the Rio, the Horseshoe casinos outside Nevada and then, finally Caesars World, which had bought the Bally and Grand casino properties.

To think of the World Series of Poker - this poker tournament - as a brand that could be marketed like any kind of consumer item required the kind of thinking Pollack had been hired to put in place.

As the publicly traded Harrah's prepares to go private because of a $90 a share buyout offer from two private equity funds, the Texas Pacific Group and Apollo Management (the total deal is valued at about $27 billion), the World Series of Poker has a front row seat among the Harrah's line-up of brands.

Pollack and other Harrah's executives decline to share many of the numbers that would serve to quantify the value of the World Series but the crowds of the curious and wannabe champs that the WSOP events attract to the Rio, the site of the World Series and to the other Harrah's venues where the circuit events are held, speak for themselves.

Pollack and his staff have not had to beat hotel and casino executives over the head in an effort to drum up support for either the World Series or the dozen or so circuit tournaments held across the U.S.

But with the June 1 start of the nearly seven weeks of action associated with the 2007 World Series just over the horizon, Pollack and his staff are already looking beyond its July 17 conclusion as they keep their focus on this "brand" and its potential.

"I came to Harrah's about two years ago with a background in the management of global sports brands and sports leagues, and the way we look at the World Series of Poker," Pollack explains, "is no different than the way the NBA or NASCAR looks at their businesses." This explains why Pollack has sought insights from a variety of levels. A player's advisory committee was formed a year ago and the World Series schedule has been tweaked continually. Everything from the number and availability of restrooms and eating facilities has received close looks.

"We want the experience at the Rio to be the best that it can be." Pollack says. Assuming all this is done well, the next item in need of critical attention is broadcasting and the media.

"This is an important strategy for any global sports brand and it is no different for us. Our relationship with ESPN is a huge driver of our global awareness, as is our relationship with AOL (and others) which help get us on a global stage in the right way.

"If you do this right," his tone suggesting he has arrived at an important point, "you're then in a position to sell sponsorships and do licensing deals."

There have been some mid-course corrections required because of issues such as last year's legislation that saw most Internet gaming companies sharply curtail their sponsorship arrangements. The necessity of Harrah's satisfying the always vigilant lawyers led the company to discontinue relationships this year with the dot-net affiliates of dotcom poker websites that are still serving the U.S.

Some of roughly one dozen sponsorships that have been sold since Pollack arrived on the scene include Miller Brewing, the U.S. Playing Card Company with its well-known Bicycle brand, the Corum watch company and more recently Hershey's.

Pollack says, "These companies and others to be announced are putting us in front of consumers yearround, not just during the World Series of Poker." How was the connection made between the World Series and a chocolate company? Pollack seems to give that a shrug as though to say easy.

"They recognized that we are a powerful promotional platform and it links the number one name in poker with the number one name in chocolate. poker players eat chocolate."

And Harrah's, uh, sweetened the deal by naming Hershey's the "official chocolate" of the World Series of Poker. The World Series logo will be found on some 20,000 Hershey's display units and the company is giving away "sweet seats," two entries in the WSOP's main event."

It's an example of the deal making that allows Pollack to envision a chain of sponsorships and licensing arrangements stretching into the future.

Other critical pillars in the foundation of events expected to benefit the World Series are player relations and international growth. "International growth," he says, "really can only happen if you've gotten all the other pieces that come before it right."

Which brings him to the subject of the World Series of Poker Europe Sept. 6-16, in London. It is, he emphasizes, an event that has been on the drawing board from day one but could only be reached as each of the preceding elements in the equation was successfully addressed.

"When Harrah's decided to buy the London Clubs International (a deal completed late last year) we decided to accelerate the launch of the tournament and our move into Europe. I've been going to Europe since the beginning of 2006 to understand the poker business there and the landscape. That was before we knew we were buying London Clubs."

Pollack thinks of the tournament as special because, "It is the first time a bracelet event will be staged, not only outside the United States, but outside Las Vegas.

"We recognize that we are late to the game in Europe in terms of tournament poker but what we are bringing that will be unique and authentic, and, we think, enhancing to the poker economy in Europe are the bracelets. No other (poker) brand can offer what we will be offering, and that is the World Series of Poker bracelet."

These are the bracelets that have long been awarded to the winner of each World Series event in Las Vegas "A lot of poker players (the wealthy ones, anyway) measure themselves against each other, not by how much money they've won, but by the number of bracelets they've won. That's something no one else can offer."

Pollack says the World Series Europe with its 10,000-pound (about $19,600) main event is not intended to compete with any of the well-established European events.

"We are not creating a tour. We are simply in the business of staging ultraprestigious tournaments and that is what the World Series of Poker Europe will be.

We will be marketing this to all players everywhere. It will be open to anyone, but our hope is that there will be more European players." Might this lead to a World Series Asia or World Series South America?

"We're focusing now on doing a good job with the World Series Europe, getting it launched smoothly, but," he says, "don't be surprised if you see another internationally- based tournament in another region announced in the next 16 -24 months."

(Photo by Flipchip / LasVegasVegas.com)