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Earlier this afternoon, I sat in on the WSOP November Nine conference call.

It really should have been called a Q&A session as the whole session consisted of us asking questions related to the November Nine.

Pokerati thinks Poker PROductions edited broadcasts sucked. Was he wrong?

As a quick summary, the major points you can take away from the call are that:

• Hole cards will be available after each and every hand, including those that conclude pre-flop.  One benefit is to prevent tanking until the coverage syncs with their hand.
• Play is stopping with three players left on Sunday to allow for more excitement and a better viewer experience for the finale on the 8th.
• The delay will be 15 minutes as opposed to 30 minutes.
• International viewers can view the November Nine final table at ESPNplay.com.

After the first few minutes, I had begun to tune out the conference, but Dan Michalsky of Pokerati immediately got my attention squarely focused yet again.

Dan Michalski of Pokerati asked a question about the ratings for this year’s WSOP broadcast when he told the panel that frankly “the non-live show leading up to the November Nine has kinda sucked this year, in my humble opinion.”

Wow, didn’t see that one coming. I haven’t watched much of the Poker PROduction coverage of the November Nine, so I can’t really say it sucked, but casual fans have tended to agree as numbers are down year over year for the program.

Part of the problem is obviously the fact that many of the fans that would normally tune in for the broadcasts watched the live broadcasts during the summer.

Beyond that, it may be time to explore further tweaking the coverage to make it truly unique and different.

While there are segments and features you won’t see in the live broadcast, many know what is going to happen so there’s little value added to the program.

I’m still a fan of going back and covering some of the preliminary events like WSOP broadcasts in the past. Cover some of the big-name field events such as the $10k Events and maybe a couple of the $5k events.

Also, if there is a particularly strong final table, even in a mixed game, cover it. While you may have to explain the games more, you will have the big names to play off of and it may indeed help ratings.

Finally, it may be time to either put the edited WSOP programming to rest or maybe move it to somewhere like ESPN2.

I’m sure steps will be taken to improve production for next year, but something needs to change to draw fans back to the broadcasts.

You can listen to the conference call, and even hear what I sound like on the phone, here.