Harrah's, WSOP disappear up their own anus

It seems an age ago now, when the Boston Celtics' decision to buck a long-standing tradition and introduce cheerleaders caused a flurry of controversy.

If only that was the worst example of sporting governance in recent months. Since then, however, cricket lovers have had to endure a World Cup tournament shorn of atmosphere and spectators in order to appease 'corporate partners', to whom drab blandness is always preferable to anything so dangerously unpredictable as an excited crowd.

And now, poker gives us this: a world championship that its organisers would rather people didn't talk about.

"Specifically, as a Full Tilt Poker affiliate, YOU MAY NOT:

Use either the WSOP's poker chip logo or stacked logo, or any image of a WSOP bracelet in any of your advertising or in any communications to your players.

You may not use the words World Series of Poker or the WSOP acronym in the official names or headlines of any contests or promotions you are running on your site, or in the titles of any websites, pages, press releases, advertisements, or articles.

"The words 'World Series of Poker' and the 'WSOP' acronym may not be used more than TWO TIMES EACH PAGE in any written material, whether online or off-line, provided that use is part of a textual sentence.

All usage of the words World Series of Poker* or WSOP* must be marked with an ASTERISK (*), and the following disclaimer must appear on every page where these terms are used, in a location and type size that is reasonably likely to be seen and read by consumers: *World Series of Poker and WSOP are trademarks of Harrah's License Company, LLC ("Harrah's"). Harrah's does not sponsor or endorse, and is not associated or affiliated with, ________ [company name] or its products, services, promotions or tournaments." [My emphases]

Now I can understand Harrah's/WSOP not wanting on-line poker rooms to make money off its name but this laughable attempt at blanket censorship would have Stalin drooling at the mouth.

I say to Harrah's/WSOP what I said to Major League Baseball and the National Football League when they insisted in twisting the golden goose to its utmost and charging a fee for mere audio coverage of games.

Do you want to promote your damn sport or not?

But it's fine with me. I hereby put Wagering War readers on notice that if they see the letters 'WSOP' on this blog from now on, it stands for Wet, Self-Obsessed Pomposity.