The first World Series of Poker was held in 1970; it was a collaboration between several of the era's most successful poker pros and Horseshoe owner Jack Binion. It's hard to imagine that any of those first participants knew that the tournament would have such long-reaching success. The Binions did little in the way of branding that first decade, and yet through word of mouth and inter-industry hype the WSOP quickly became the largest live poker tournament in the world. Thus the WSOP's early success is a lesson not in good business but in being in the right place at the right time.
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the WSOP remained pretty low-key. For 34 years it was held at the Binion's Horseshoe; in the same rooms, at the same tables, and quite often with the same players. Marketing was minimal; any serious poker player already knew about the WSOP, and few amateurs were willing to fork over the four and five-digit buyins. The WSOP received some publicity from tournament coverage aired on secondary stations, but before hole card cameras were introduced in 2002 much of this coverage was too bland to attract the attention of the general public.
In 1998, Jack Binion's daughter, Becky Behnen, bought controlling interest in the Horseshoe and the WSOP brand. The old casino was having trouble competing with the Strip's big new resorts, and at the time the WSOP was the only thing keeping it afloat. Unfortunately, Behnen underestimated the importance of the WSOP when she made several unpopular cost-cutting changes to the tournament in the late 1990s. When the WPT appeared in 2002 with its big prizes, impressive locations and regular coverage (including the hole cam), mismanagement of the WSOP brand made it an easy target, and many of the tournament's once loyal players were all too happy to jump ship and try the new series.
The online poker crowd kept the WSOP afloat thanks to satellites and cheap advertising, but the WSOP got its biggest break in 2003 when an online amateur won the Main Event. Millions of new players flooded to online poker rooms, and those numbers overflowed into massive future WSOP entries. There were 839 entrants in the 2003 WSOP Main Event; the following year there were 2576. Harrah's Entertainment saw the future potential of the brand and purchased it outright in 2004. They changed the location, amped up the marketing, and secured massive new television contracts for the tournament.
The WSOP brand has flourished under the guidance of a new business plan; it even weathered the recent economic crisis with strong numbers and continues to be the largest live poker event in the world. Sadly, Harrah's Entertainment is a private company, so WSOP stocks are unattainable. Still, the story of the WSOP's long unrealized success is the perfect example of how a good product will perform in the right (and wrong) hands.
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