Should WSOP Circuit Winners Get WSOP Bracelets?

Would this help attract more players to the WSOP Circuit?

With the WSOP Circuit season now complete, most people who are interested in the future of that tournament series will probably have their minds focused firmly on Las Vegas for the next eight weeks while the 41st running of the World Series of Poker gets to the business of awarding its 57 bracelets. But at least one poker pro is thinking of the WSOP Circuit right now – and he thinks that it should award bracelets, too.

Bernard Lee’s latest ESPN column takes on the subject of what Harrah’s can do to improve the fortunes of the five-year old WSOPC, noting (as we have in the past) that the attendance at the main events of the most recent WSOPC season were dismal at best. Lee’s suggestion for turning the Circuit around is to award official WSOP bracelets to the winners of each WSOPC stop’s championship event, with those tournaments employing the exact same structure as equivalent WSOP events held during the summer in Las Vegas. Lee thinks that more players would come out chasing bracelets, which would boost the prize pools, which would in turn draw even more players who don’t care about the bracelets but do care about the extra money. 

It’s an idea that’s unlikely to come to fruition – the WSOP is very protective of its brand and wouldn’t want to dilute the value of the gold bracelet. Also, some well-known players like Phil Hellmuth, who doesn’t want anyone to have an easy shot at catching up to the 11 bracelets he’s won so far, are also firmly against the idea of pumping up the Circuit at the expense of the original WSOP. But regardless of whether this particular solution is the way to go, the WSOP needs to do something soon to fix the WSOP Circuit – if its lagging performance continues for another year it will be difficult for anyone to consider its tournaments “major.”