Just when you think that there are no new worlds left for the World Poker Tour to conquer, the WPT finds…well, more new worlds.
It was announced earlier this week that the WPT had signed a new distribution deal with ELEVEN SPORTS Network aimed at bringing the products of the WPT to new markets. ELEVEN SPORTS will be broadcasting the televised WPT events and the Alpha8 series (there are two seasons in the can; a third has yet to be announced) in Belgium and Luxembourg. Those broadcasts are set to begin in June on ELEVEN SPORTS’ distribution outlets in those countries.
“WPT Distribution to proud to partner with ELEVEN SPORTS Network to bring premier World Poker Tour content to the network’s robust offering available to audiences in Belgium and Luxembourg,” said Johnny McMahon, the Vice President of WPT Studios. “Pairing WPT, the premier name in televised gaming and entertainment, with a world-class sports and lifestyle entertainment provider such as ELEVEN SPORTS Network, creates the perfect win-win partnership that WPT Distribution is interested in as it continues to aggressively expand its international content distribution.”
ELEVEN SPORTS’ Danny Menken, the Group Managing Director for the company, was also happy to have the WPT in his programming schedule. “We’re delighted to add World Poker Tour and Alpha8 content to the Belgian sports package of ELEVEN SPORTS,” he stated during the announcement of the agreement. “We are always looking for great opportunities to increase our local package with different kinds of sports, and the addition of poker content from WPT Distribution allows us to offer more unique and entertaining programming to our audience.”
The pickup of the World Poker Tour is ELEVEN SPORTS’ first foray into poker on its airwaves. Previously the up-and-coming company had concentrated primarily on soccer, rugby, basketball, auto racing and other sports (ELEVEN SPORTS is also home to the Lingerie Football League in the States of America). Along with Belgium and Luxembourg, ELEVEN SPORTS is broadcast in Poland, Italy, Singapore, Taiwan, and over cable outlets in the States of America.
The WPT has been quite active of late, not only with their distribution but also with their poker products. Just last week, the WPT announced new forays into previously untouched areas of the world with a new WPTDeepStacks event in India – as well as an WPT Indian Player of the Year competition – and the first-ever push into South America with the WPTDeepStacks Uruguay. Both competitions will be held later this year, pushing the WPT brand into a country of over 1.3 billion people and into a continent (South America) that they have never entered before.
Added into this new worldwide attitude is the recent partnership between the WPT and the #1 online poker site in the industry, PokerStars. The two entities joined forces for the “WPT/PokerStars Championship MonteDam Swing,” which saw a competition based on tournaments held during both the recent PokerStars Championship Monte Carlo and the WPT Amsterdam festivals. That first-ever collaboration was quite successful, with Andreas Klatt not only winning the PokerStars National Championship in Monte Carlo (one of the four qualifying tournaments) but taking down the overall title with his outstanding performance. As it was announced just before the start of the 2017 events, the possibilities for better planning for 2018 is definitely evident for the “MonteDam Swing.”
All this movement by the WPT is a breath of fresh air for a company that once never left the North American continent. Under the guidance of WPT president Adam Pliska, the WPT has put the “world” back in their name with expansion of the WPTDeepStacks tournaments overseas (once a North American “regional” schedule) and the inclusion of more top line tournaments to the WPT Main Schedule. Not only does the addition of the foreign events make the game of poker more international, it increases the footprint of the WPT in being a major player in the international realm of the game.
