Friday, February 11, 2005
Poker magazine becomes a bigger player
Barry Shulman, publisher of Card Player, foresees business tripling for his company by summer.
BY STEVEN MIHAILOVICH
BUSINESS PRESS
If there are quite a few people remaining who still believe that the explosion of poker in the past year is just a fad, then they have neither followed the sport or played it or, above all, invested in it.
As Strip casinos are either adding, expanding or reintroducing poker rooms while top tournament organizers such as the World Poker Tour and the World Series of Poker increase the size of both their matches and television audiences, local poker publication Card Player is growing right along with them.
The company has tripled its growth, crossed the Atlantic to penetrate the European market, and even entered the book publishing business when it published a title from the company's owners. And that was just the last year.
Yet perhaps the most remarkable feature of Card Player's success is that its officials expect that rapid expansion to continue at the same stupendous pace over the next few years.
"My share of the market is going up," says Barry Shulman, chairman, publisher and majority owner of the company. "I've tripled my business every year. I'd be shocked if I didn't triple the business by summer."
Started in 1987, Card Player was acquired in 1998 by Shulman, who had come to Las Vegas searching for something to do in his retirement while simultaneously rekindling his college love of poker. A year later, Shulman brought in his son, Jeff, as president and CEO as well as minority owner.
Last year, when the poker craze was just breaking out, Card Player was printing an average 110 pages and 50,000 copies monthly. Of that number, 3,500 copies went to subscribers, about 8,000 for newsstands including 5,000 in Southern California, and the rest to poker rooms around the valley and the country.
Since then, everything has grown like a championship ante. The magazine's average size has increased by 23.6 percent to 136 pages and company has increased print runs by 70 percent to 85,000. While distribution to casino poker rooms have remained steady at about 40,000, the magazine's availability has extended to major retail points such as Barnes & Noble and B. Dalton bookstores and even Wal-Mart as well as newsstands at major airports across the country.
Although subscriptions have tripled from 3,500 to about 14,000, with many of the new subscriptions coming in "the last couple of months," Card Player is disappointed in light of stated projections of having 100,000 new subscribers by this time.
According to Shulman, part of the problem was attaining the lower postal rates for mass distribution required to lower annual subscriptions from $109 to the current $39.95. "It took way more time than it should have," he adds. "It was more difficult than [anticipated]."
Cause and effect moved up the chain and the delay in receiving lower bulk rates and increasing subscription derailed plans to approach huge national advertisers for consumer products, such as soda pop makers and athletic shoes, which demand a large subscription base from publications before considering them. With subscriptions taking off, Shulman believes that idea is back on the table and will be played by the next quarter.
Still, some of the plans went according to schedule. If the domestic sales, while robust, were slower than projected, the company hit a straight with its international strategy. Cashing in on growing transatlantic interest in poker, the company has been in Europe for the past six months, with roughly one-third of the content written exclusively for European audiences. Five contributing writers located on the other side of the Atlantic provide the copy.
Printing 6,000 copies a month, the magazine is being slowly unfolded across the continent, concentrating on countries where the game has gotten the most attention. Ranked in order, the top three markets are the U.K., Sweden and Paris, France, which has the largest poker room in Europe.
Also on the mark with its strategy, the magazine completely revamped its content and is looking to reach a wider demographic than the 35-55-year-old male, which was the typical reader when Shulman acquired the publication.
"There are fewer tournament results of someone winning $1,000 in a place you've never heard of," says Shulman. "[It's more about] players and the lifestyle."
While still predominantly male, about 90 percent, Card Player readers are younger than before, averaging about 25 years old, according to Shulman.
The slower than expected subscription growth and younger demographic profile explain the phenomenal growth of the company's Web site. Averaging 3,000 hits daily in 2003, the Internet audience increased eight times to 12,000 hits per day last year and recently grew another 250 percent to 30,000 hits daily. As measured by Internet rating service Alexa, the Card Player site has leaped from the 200,000th-most-visited in 2003 to the number 7,500 spot currently.
Moreover, people are spending more time at the site, with views per visit expanding from six pages to 10 pages. That fact has turned the company's revenue model on its head, with the supporting Internet site now taking the lead.
Requiring five full-time and four part-time employees to maintain, "The Web site used to have no costs and now is a big expense," Shulman notes. "But it is a revenue producer on its own. Web site ads are more revenue-producing than the magazine for now."
Last month, the company added free e-mail, a poker record-keeping feature and the ability to personalize the page like Yahoo, in addition to features like a poker chat room and free tournaments with cash and other prizes to maintain and grow its Web site's market share.
With its success firmly established, the company has tried its hand in other media, launching Card Player Press, a book publishing division. Shulman himself is one of its first contributors, last month publishing his first book entitled "52 Tips for Texas Hold'Em Poker," which is selling on Amazon.com as well as its own Web site.
While not releasing revenue figures, Shulman said the company has reached 19 full-time employees, not counting contributing writers, with 12 in Las Vegas, to handle the work.
"I've got staff coming out of my ears," he says. "My kid (Jeff) kicked me out of my own office and put in three partitions. We have a full-time employee just pulling out book orders, DVD's, shirts and other promotional items."
Having learned not to make projections, at least publicly, Shulman believes the summit to the poker rage has yet to be seen, let alone reached, but when it happens, Card Player is betting the pot to make sure its flag is firmly planted there.
"Lots of people who follow poker watch TV and are online but have never stepped into a poker room," he says. "We are working very hard to make sure that if anyone has an interest in poker, they never have to leave Card Player ... Poker is not even close to losing its momentum as a phenomenon. There is so much on TV that sooner or later, people are going to turn it off. But everyone is still watching and still making money."
