Early on, few shared the vision. From his television production days, Lipscomb knew executives at many networks and cable stations, but when he called, they laughed. Given the limited success of televised poker to that point, no one else thought the airwaves needed even more poker. Its seedy backroom image made it difficult to interest television, potential employees, sponsors, and later, investment bankers. Some potential hires visiting the firm's temporary office in Los Angeles wondered if the enterprise was closer to porn than to mainstream entertainment.
But Lipscomb was convinced that, as with Battle for the Minds, he just needed to show people his product. He decided to raise enough money to produce the show before it had been sold to television. His first call was to Lyle Berman, founder of Lakes Entertainment, a company that consults with Native American tribes in developing casino gaming. An avid poker player, Berman was one of many subjects Lipscomb had met while making his poker documentary. Berman got it right away. The Lakes Entertainment board approved a $3.5 million investment in December 2001, and the World Poker Tour was in business the following February, just five months after Lipscomb started writing his business plan. He sold 70% of his concept to Lakes, kept 16.5% for himself, and divvied up the rest to top management and others. To get the WPT off the ground, he gave up a lot, but he put in no money himself. "I'm a sweat equity guy," he says.
Lipscomb, Kania, Moder, and an assistant moved into four offices on a former Warner Brothers production lot in West Hollywood. The historic building had been converted to offices and was chosen for its flexible floor plan, which allowed tenants to expand as needed. In three years, the WPT has hired 57 full-time employees and now occupies almost the entire building. It has working sound stages -- and, says Kania, "celebrities playing basketball just outside."
The first thing Lipscomb did after securing his venture capital was to hit the road and persuade high-profile casinos to get involved. The events that are now part of the WPT already existed, as discrete tournaments, waiting to be pulled together under an umbrella. In the world of big-time tournament poker, the majors have long been the $10,000-entry No Limit Texas Hold 'em tournaments. One such event was the World Poker Finals at Foxwoods in Connecticut.
When Lipscomb and Kania showed up at Foxwoods in March 2002 to make their pitch, they were shocked to find the casino executives, from the boss through middle management, in suits and ties, seated around a huge conference table. "All we had brought was a flip chart," Lipscomb recalls. The audience seemed unreceptive to the pitch, but less than 20 minutes after Lipscomb finished, his cell phone rang. It was the casino's poker-room manager, Kathy Raymond, calling to sign on. Lipscomb says Kania still kids him about how big his smile grew as he took the call. They had a deal, and now Lipscomb had the leverage to get other venues -- the Bellagio, Commerce -- on board. "I signed them up within a month," he says, "and by the beginning of April, we had a tour."
The first WPT event, the Five Diamond Poker Classic, was scheduled for the Bellagio in June 2002 and several others followed quickly. The events, from the prize pools to the administration to the tables, chips, and dealers, are run (and paid for) by the casinos -- all, that is, except for the final table, when the last six contestants are seated in the WPT's "arena." Thus, despite purses as high as $7 million each week, the events are put on with little expense for Lipscomb and the WPT.
But Lipscomb did have to assemble the crew, staff, and infrastructure to start filming. He hired Mike Sexton, a poker pro, and Vince Van Patten, the former child actor and professional tennis player, to be on-air hosts. Shana Hiatt, a former host of E! Entertainment's Wild On adventure show, would be the roving reporter. Things were so frantic leading up to the first Foxwoods event that Lipscomb designed the WPT arena -- a stage featuring the final table and announcers' booth, surrounded by swirling spotlights, cameras, and banners, all mounted on metal scaffolding -- on the back of a napkin. He and his crew created the set, developed the show's structure, and brainstormed the innovation that changed everything about televised poker: the now-famous "hole cams," miniature cameras that allow the television audience to see the players' concealed cards. In Hold 'em, each player gets two cards dealt face-down, and then all the players share five common cards dealt face-up. By showing the down -- or "hole" -- cards to the fans, Lipscomb lets the audience see who's bluffing, who has a monster hand, and how the pros play.
After months of filming, Lipscomb had a lot of promising raw footage but no one interested in airing the show. "It took me eight months to edit the footage for the first two-hour show," he says. "That was me sitting down with an editor, six days a week, for 15- to 18-hour days. About three months into it, people from Lakes Entertainment were calling, saying, 'When are we going to see something?' I thought maybe we just couldn't do it. All the ways we tried to put it together and put it on the screen had not worked. There was so much information to get across."
It took three and a half months of searching for a format before Lipscomb had his "aha!" moment: Imagining a sports bar, he suddenly realized that all popular televised sports can be enjoyed with the sound off. He decided to use graphics to make poker watchable. To do this, he created an onscreen format that displays icons of the cards, along with the players' names and amounts bet and constantly recomputed odds of winning. He finished editing the show, and his investors and partners loved it. But the WPT still had no TV deal.
