I’ve read this in a few articles this quarter, and have seen the topic pop up in some poker forums I frequent. Poker tournament pots are down. Why? Fewer players. Why? Many blame the economy.

Poker as a sport might still be popular to watch and follow on television and the Internet, but the World Poker Tour and Rush Poker are reporting that they are hurting. Some historically popular tournaments are down nearly 50% attendance. It doesn’t matter how much you hike up the buy-in, that translates into fewer dollars for the winning players. And when the pots drop, the big names fade away, too. There’s not much glory in Phil Ivey walking away with a $140,000 grand prize.

But is the economy really to blame? Could poker’s own popularity worldwide be it’s own worst enemy? After all, different countries/continents have their own poker tours now, with winnings promising to be just as lucrative. Not every poker player cares about their two-minute interview on ESPN2.

The odds are a combination of things, including both the aforementioned issues. Smaller prizes and more competition pulling the attention away from the audience both are likely contributing to fewer sponsors, as well. And that’s where the real financial hit shows up. You can bet Full Tilt or another popular poker site isn’t dying to throw money at a tournament where only half the audience will see those baseball hats that did just a year ago. Even in a down economy, advertisers are smart with their decisions.

So what can you do? Not much, short of scrounging up a few thousand for a buy-in…err…donation to the cause. But if you’re like most players, you’re not coming anywhere close to something that’s being filmed by a TV crew, so that’s out of the question. And with people busy working more jobs to get by right now, that means less time to enjoy the FullTilt Poker game on TV.

The game still has the big tournaments and the big faces (although Harrahs had to bail out the WSOP just a few years ago itself). As long as Farha, Ivey, Hellmuth and the gang are making it look easy from across the green felt, there’ll still be money to be made. Just not as much. And people wonder why Ivey spends so much time raking in the dough on side games at the tournament, even when he’s at the final table.

So perhaps the economy isn’t bluffing. It might just be holding all the cards in this one.