Branding the Stars - Poker Logos

If you’ve watched poker on TV you must have noticed the difference between tournament final tables which allow the players to be caught on camera resplendent with logos, and those that black out, for example, the name of an internet site splashed across a hat-brim with black tape, as if they’d all turned up with expletives emblazoned on their clothing. My mother actually thought that was the case – so ridiculous did the blackout of the names look that she expressed curiosity as to which form of blasphemous or scatological language was so popular in the poker scene. The organisers’ reasons for reluctance to accept branding (example: the WPT) is often linked to restrictions placed on them by those who film and air the shows rather than the event organisers. Even those who reluctantly have agreed for their stars to wear logos are usually very strict with the small print.

Here follow some of the rules the comparatively sponsorship-friendly EPT set on their website:

• Players will be allowed to wear company logos/branding on their shirts provided that the following restrictions are accepted:
i. One breast pocket logo no larger than 7cm x 10cm.
ii. Two upper shirt sleeve logos no larger than 8cm x 3cm. (One on each sleeve.)
iii. No other branding on any part of the clothing, body or card protectors etc. will be allowed.

• Baseball caps will be allowed but no logos must be visible on them.

• Players can be sponsored by a company only before the tournament start. Any un-sponsored player, not wearing branded clothing or logos at the beginning of a 'EPT' tournament, can only be sponsored by the headline sponsor (Pokerstars.com).

• No more than 10% of the overall entry field at any event on the 'EPT' can wear the branding/logos of any single company with the exception of the headline sponsor of that event. If more than 10% of the players from any single company are wearing the branding/logos of any single company, then the players themselves or a company representative must decide which players wear the branded clothing. If no decision is made, then EPT will high card the players to make a decision.

• No more than 2 players on the final table can wear the logos of any single company. If more than 2 players from any single company reach the final table then the players themselves or a company representative must decide which 2 players wear the branded clothing. If no decision is made, then EPT will high card the players to make a decision. Any player starting the final table with no logos must remain wearing no logos throughout the final.

Players, or their sponsors, vote with their feet, and if the alternative to allowing branding to grace the players is to have the sponsors put them in some other event run by more understanding organisers, they understandably have to think again. The Monte Carlo Millions, with its €25,000 buy-in and format which is the envy of other comps aiming at the highest rollers has specified, like quite a few in the last years, that logos will be allowed, but only ONE logo per player is allowed. So you can wear a PokerStars hat, but you can’t also wear a PartyPoker shirt. Unlikely though that eventuality may be, the black tape will be coming out for one of those should you make it on television. I have actually seen a player agonising over whether to remove his differently-branded hat, or do up his hoody to hide his shirt, only to find that said hoody was ‘advertising’ too. Tape measures occasionally come out to make sure that the shirt has the right size badge on it.

Sponsored players and TV are an awkward match – the whole point of getting your name on the chest or head of a successful player is to get them some camera time, but it’s been an uphill struggle once the player gets in front of the cameras to keep the brand on him or her.

This leads on to the main point: perhaps most importantly, from the players’ perspective, should the companies and tournament organisers not have ended up compliant (which was, however, always going to happen), the whole phenomenon of sponsorship would never have become so huge. But on the other hand, like most televised sports, linking a famous name with a brand was always going to be beneficial for all involved, and it was inevitable that the Hendon Mob, for example, was going to get their Prima shirts some air time. So pressure from the players, especially the famous ones, without whom there would be no show, has led to the not-yet-famous ones to hanker after the same kind of exposure.

It is now the goal of a host of young, up-and-coming players to “get sponsored and go on tour” as the sums of money involved in, say, following the EPT for a year (an average year, with no half million Euro wins or anything) are prohibitive. There is a sliding scale involved in sponsoring players, from the buy-in only type which involves a money split should the sponsoree win anything, to that of players it is worth the companies’ while to actually pay to wear their stuff, as well as their buy-ins, and their expenses, and whatever else they want. The idea now is for young tournament players to start off at the bottom level and use it to create their own media hype around themselves (and their successes, fingers crossed), thereby ensuring their perpetual sponsorship and getting a better deal all round etc.

And as for those on the other side of the table, the casinos, organisers and promoters of big buy-in tournaments (and there are now a truly astounding number of these per year): their success now hinges on a variety of factors: how close they are in time to other big buy-in tournaments, how much money they guarantee their prize pool, how many big name players they can attract and, recently, whether the players can wear their all-important logos on their hats, shirts, glasses, or tattooed across their forehead. The last two – the big players and their signs of affiliation are interconnected now in a way that the pro of five years ago would never have imagined.

The money from being a top tournament player may be good, but the money which comes from sponsorship is better as it takes the pressure off your wallet and ideally sets you freerolling your way around the world, while the money which comes from endorsements if you really hit the big time is something you can bank. Phil Hellmuth’s face half-glared, half-grinned from banks of poker chip sets being sold at this year’s World Series. The Rio sported a cavernous conference area filled to bursting with this kind of stuff. I was half expecting some of the little stands to try to flog me Phil Ivey dental floss or Jennifer Harman nail polish.

But this is getting beyond mere sponsorship – Mr. Hellmuth, for example, is particularly savvy at choosing who he becomes involved with for any kind of self-promotional undertaking, as well as his moments for things like releasing books, videos and paraphernalia. Like him or not, you know who he is.

This is the idea (I would imagine) behind the ubiquitous Full Tilt brethren. In their black and red sportswear, you can see them coming a mile off, and you’ll recognise them from the biggest cash games, the most prestigious tournaments and the highlights of the televised WPT. And if you don’t, their names are written on their backs in foot-high lettering, just in case. This was a clever idea – get together an Uberteam of top players and brand them alike. You probably don’t want to have to sit next to Chris Ferguson, Howard Lederer, Erik Seidel or Mike Matusow (for different reasons). But somehow they’re even scarier in that photo where they are all striding down the road like something out of Reservoir Dogs.

It is attractive to all parties to create a team like this, and they’re not the only ones to have thought of it, just the most well known. The Norwegian Team Norsemen, for example, are a very personable, and skilled bunch of players, who wear these white Expekt hoodies as they travel about. And the best thing about clothing is that it’s removable. As players returned for the final table of the EPT event in Baden, Austria, I spotted young Dutch player Abel Meijberg having a chat in the hallway with the PokerStars guys, the outcome of which was an immediate T-Shirt change right there, right then.

This makes perfect sense – why waste your logo when you can guarantee that a player previously happy with his Nike shirt, or the jumper his mum knitted for him will gladly put yours on just at that crucial moment as they head out in front of the cameras, guaranteed to win five figures and grace the screens of everyone with cable. There are often no strings attached for this kind of thing, too, the player might just get a little present of money, and no actual sponsorship. But if they win the thing and start to attain Star status, then there’s always presumably the option to snap them up.

Sponsorship of the big players seems to benefit everyone involved – the players themselves, the companies behind them, the event organisers. It is arguable that the game as a whole has not, however, been done any real favours. Some good players I know feel that until they make some TV time off their own bat they’re going to be looked over for the kind of sponsorship which the previously-famous got automatically offered. There is also grumbling that celebrity might open the sponsorship door wider than actual talent in certain cases, and you certainly can’t argue about the fact that Caprice wearing your shirt is going to get you more attention than the winner of the local poker league in Walsall is. But it hasn’t done it any harm, and provided a link between the money-making monster of online poker, and the live game as played by its top guys and girls.