There has been a lot of interest around the sale of the WPT. Unfortunately, this hasn’t translated into increased numbers at WPT tournaments. The first stop of the year (in the US), The Bellagio Cup, drew only 268 entrants, compared to 446 participants in 2008, a 40% decline. The tour is currently at The Legends of Poker event, and attendance is down once again, this time 25%: From 373 players in 2008, to 279 players in 2009.

The down-trend began midway through last year’s schedule, and was blamed on everything from the recession, to Foxwoods’ bad location. The truth might be that competition is hurting the WPT: You now have the European Poker Tour (EPT), Asian Pacific Poker Tour (APPT), as well as the World Series of Poker Circuit events and other smaller tournaments.

When you couple the new poker tours that have been springing up across the globe with the online poker sites run numerous satellites to these non-US based tournaments, you can see how they are siphoning players from the WPT’s US stops. So, instead of satellites to the WPT Legends of Poker event, many online poker sites are running satellites to the APT and EPT events (where they are legitimate sponsors).

Another issue that may have caused the lower turnouts is sponsorship. With the smaller sites getting into the sponsorship business their pros are being sent all over the world to tournaments, and not simply to the WPT event. It doesn’t seem like it should add up to much, but losing 25 players is quite a bit if you only draw 300 normally (unlike the WSOP where you would never notice).

[x] poker is dead.

I havent noticed Foxwoods even running any satellites as in the past.

I stand corrected, they currently are beginning 10/19