DON McDERMOTT MORE COLUMNS Advertisement

Did you know:

*The 2008 Major League Baseball World Series is going to be played in March 2009, as a prelude to next season.

*The Super Bowl has been moved to September 2009, to help publicize the arrival of the next National Football League season.

*The final round of the Masters, instead of being played on a Sunday in April, will be contested on the Monday after the PGA is contested in late summer.

*The final table of the 2008 World Series of Poker will be played in November -- four months after the nine players in the $10,000-buy-in no-limit Texas hold'em game are determined.

Okay ... you got me. The first three are the result of mindless absurdities and are blantant falsehoods.

Ah, but the World Series of Poker final table, instead of being played in mid-July to conclude the 2008 tournament, will be contested Nov. 9-10 in the Rio. It is the latest evidence that television rules ...we now know the price WSOP organizers want to say the Hell to tradition.

It proves once again that organizers have surrendered their principles for love of the almighty dollar.

Organizers (Harrah's Entertainment) last week announced that they plan to televise final table play the same day the winner is crowned. The changes, according to Harrah's mouthpieces, are "intended to heighten suspense and promotional hype of the world's best known and richest poker tournament."

There has been a steady deterioration in the quality of the operation of the World Series of Poker since it moved from Binion's to the Rio. Each year, the WSOP's television partner -- ESPN -- has taken over how the media, especially the print media, is treated during the seven weeks the tournament is played.

Access is limited for us newspaper types; if a camera person isn't in the way, security guards are, especially if we somehow get in the way of a movement of a camera operator.

Sure, that's self-serving. Then again, what's happened to fair play? Right, television rights dollars help generate megagbucks for the bottom line. Some poor newspaper schmo is not going to add a dollar to the coffers.

In previous years, the WSOP winner was reported immediately, but ESPN did not air the final table until the fall.

The main event is scheduled to begin July 3, with the field steadily reduced to the final nine players July 14.

The final table will begin Nov. 9; ESPN is to televise the final table competition on Nov. 11.

``I think the goal is to create a greater sense of anticipation for the outcome of our final table. We want people, as many people as possible around the world, talking about who's going to win,'' said Jeffery Pollack, the tournament commissioner.

Organizers said they expect the nine final players to use the four-month break to secure sponsorships, study their opponents and capitalize on the publicity.

We have to wonder. Will television stations, other than ESPN, hype the WSOP in that four-month break? How will print publications (newspapers, major magazines not poker related) and internet bloggers? And, finally, the NFL, NHL and NBA seasons will be underway, with sports books heavily involved in taking wagers; will they have lines on the final nine -- and how will that factor affect what happens Nov. 9-10-11, ad nauseum?