- “As an organizer who has a key role in … the outcome of the game we see ourselves in the league function, aimed to be impartial and to have maximum trust and integrity.”
- The brass at the World Series of Poker is going to let the name they have built for over 43 years do the talking.
- Officials indicated that money that would have been put into signing a high profile player is going to be filtered into tournaments like their upcoming World Series of Poker Online Championship (WSOPOC).
WSOP has no plans to sign up a brand ambassador or sponsored pros to help promote the poker room, officials confirmed this week.
Typically, online poker rooms sign high profile players to represent the site, put a face to the game and hopefully draw in new players. But Caesars is adopting a different strategy.
“On the land based side of the WSOP, we’ve always shied away from signing personal endorsements with individual players,” said Ty Stewart, Executive Director of The World Series of Poker and Vice President for Caesars Interactive Entertainment, during a media conference call Monday.
“As an organizer who has a key role in … the outcome of the game we see ourselves in the league function, aimed to be impartial and to have maximum trust and integrity.”
The practice of signing professional players to represent a brand has transcended most market conditions and has even survived the financial toll Black Friday took on the industry—and the public relations scar left after Full Tilt Poker was discovered to have paid its pros/owners with players’ money.
So, unlike its main rival in the Nevada online real-money gaming space, Ultimate Poker, who has an army of professional players representing their site and lead by brand ambassador Antonio Esfandiari, the brass at the World Series of Poker is going to let the name they have built for over 43 years do the talking.
“We feel it is even more important to the online gaming space to continue to have that approach. I will tell you as a guiding principle we think it’s best to spend our promotional dollars to foster a healthy ecosystem, spread it across the community and the market at large versus spending it against a handful of players,” Stewart commented.
Officials indicated that money that would have been put into signing a high profile player is going to be filtered into tournaments like their upcoming World Series of Poker Online Championship (WSOPOC).
Residents and visitors of Nevada will be eligible to play for real-money at WSOP.com starting this Thursday, September 19 (at 9:19am).
