Fans of the PBR were shocked at the news that Jeffrey Pollack moved from the WSOP, and was elected to the PBR Board of Directors as Executive Chairman. A corporate elite decision maker has taken on a leading role in the future of the PBR?
Having covered the World Series of Poker as well as the Professional Bull Riders World Finals providing media coverage around Jeffery Pollack as well as Randy Bernard, I do have a unique look at the new change of command at the PBR.
Like Randy, Jeffery never was a cowboy or into the sport until he joined the organization. Like many of us, that one event is all it took to get us hooked and I sincerely believe he is hooked on the sport.
I mean what is more exciting?? Watching nine people sitting around a card table listening to their iPods, throwing cards, and counting chips? Or a cowboy getting on to a ton of bull and trying to hang on for 8 seconds??
However, Randy had a fire in his belly, the desire to do more for the brand, and drive to do more for the people it represented. He was fan focused because he had to be in order to make the payroll. Jeffery is not in the same position.
Jeffery Pollack is corporate to the bone. The opened suit coat and unbuttoned top button of the properly starched shirt is about as laid back as he gets. Also understand that he was hired to help expand the brand and to enrich the people who own it. You don’t need a cowboy hat to do that.
Jeffery was hired more for his Rolodex, than his skills at improving anything. Having been in the world of NASCAR and WSOP with ESPN, he knows people. And there is nothing wrong with that as your entry card.
Randy helped to build a terrific sport and energized the fan base. After 20 years, it was time to find someone to care for it, and nurtured that brand to its next phase of life. Jeffery Pollack just may be the one to do that.
Jeffery Pollock came onto the sports scene with NASCAR. After NASCAR consolidated itself by tying up any loose cannons, sponsors, and team players. He took over and helped build the brand into the powerhouse we know today.
While this alienated some of the sport’s earlier supporters and backers, it opened the sport to a newer and larger audience. Which is similar to the spot the PBR is in now.
In 2004, Harrah’s acquires the rights to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) when it buys Binion’s Horseshoe in Las Vegas. Harrah’s was after the Horseshoe and WSOP brand names. Everything else that came with it, was discarded
Poker at that point was a game that wasn’t really seen as a sport, yet. The WSOP had a loyal, worldwide following, and a rich history. A history built on maverick players, long nights, big bets, and winners wanting a bracelet and their name on the wall more than they wanted any money.
The invention of the hole-card cam made poker watchable as well as a hot media commodity with almost every network trying to create its own poker show; how could anyone go wrong??
With deep pockets and owning a brand name to a hot commodity they could use as a bully pulpit, Harrah’s wanted to expand the big game into everything it could be. In other words “How much money can we make from this business and from where?”
And Jeffery Pollack was the man for the job. Harrah’s began to consolidate the brand and started marketing it everyway they could imagine.
In 2005, Harrah’s put the granddaddy of poker tournaments on steroids with Jeffery Pollack in the drivers seat. A spin of his Rolodex, a deal with ESPN, and sponsors were now lining up to be a part of the new event. The deals could not be signed fast enough.
The old world of WSOP was forced into the new world of multi-media marketing and mega sponsorships. Making players into idols worthy of their own brand as well as newly minted millionaires. The original people behind the game did not exactly go willingly into the new world.
Where the PBR and their fans were raised in the age of new media, mega sponsorship, and players being at one with the fans. That is not the problem people are having with this maturing phase the PBR is experiencing.
The problem I am seeing from the fans is that PBR is going corporate as fast as it can. Their focus is more on the company bank account, not on the fan that fills the seats and buys the pay per views. As one of the announcers at the 2009 World Finals joked… “Pretty soon we will be seeing the bull coming out of the Kotex chute.”
Maybe Jeffery Pollock saw that with the WSOP, and that is the reason he left. Watching the 2010 WSOP, the first year without him, I see more sponsorship, less energy, and fewer named players showing up for the start of the show.
People aka Stars come in; fulfill their sponsorship obligations, and leave to go play in another casino or another game outside the limelight and outside of Harrah’s micro management and control.
After all, Harrah’s works more like a “our way or no way” corporate mentality, and Jeffery was more of a pawn for Harrah’s brass, rather than a man able to do his own thing and do the brand and the fans right.
I give the board of the PBR kudos for looking outside the arena and picking a man who knows about brand ownership. I also feel that maybe once Jeffery realizes that blue jeans are an acceptable form of work clothes and that a meeting held in the middle of a mud filled bull pen, can be just as productive as a meeting in an oak walled office that he will leave his wubby (suit coat) at home and warm up to the fans. That he will do okay by the fans, and be accepted as a good guy in the end… even if his Stetson isn’t white.
