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For the last decade the Live Poker (*) market has grown 20% year over year. 2014 is set to break another record for the industry with registered player growth at 6% year-to-date - reaching more than $1.1 Billion in Poker Tournament entry fees. The takeaway - Poker is neither a trend nor a fad. Its a steadily growing market, one thats set to stay for the long haul. Yet while this is great, much still needs to be done to develop Poker to reach its true potential, as a sport and as a living ‘ecosystem’.
Our company - the Global Poker Index (GPI) - is investing in finding creative solutions to develop initiatives industry-wide initiatives geared to serve stakeholders from every market corridor - from players, brick-and-mortar poker rooms, and online operators, to fans, digital media outlets, and everyone in between.
Two months ago I had written a blog via LinkedIn titled "Sports Marketing : Poker is Mainstream, Legitimate and Bankable". In it I laid out a lot of analysis and raw numbers that help frame how the public perceives the game of Poker and its overall "brandability". This post was, in many ways, a preamble to our new motto: "We Sportify Poker".
Education is Necessary.
After two years spent building out the foundation of our vision, its now time to accelerate. It’s time to execute. On this note, GPI recently held a summit in London whose primary purpose was education. We set about educating Sports & Advertising agencies about Poker’s true potential and were met with genuine interest. As a result of this warm reception, we will be duplicating this candid, educationally minded conference again in the near future throughout New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and London. The goal - building relationships between GPI/ Poker, and the Sports & Advertising world in North America as well as Europe.
"Content is King, and Distribution is Queen"
Since its inception one of GPI’s core missions is to make Poker content distribution across a large number of digital properties - poker-centric and mainstream outlets alike - a reality. We already do this with USA Today, Cinesport, and SportingNews.com. With these distribution assets we’ve been able to reach more than 100+ Newspapers from all over the world, as well as leading online media hubs such as MSN.com, AOL.com, and many others. This is only a beginning though. In our journey to support Poker and enable its move into the mainstream, we’re resolute that in addition to proper ‘Poker World education’and having the right content distribution networks, mainstream acknowledgement will come part & parcel with the way 'We Sportify Poker’.
GPI Player Rankings - The Backbone of New ‘Sports-Formatted’ Poker Events:
Since acquiring the Global Poker Index two years ago, we’ve spent a lot of time and effort to become recognized as the ranking poker authority by both players and the greater Poker ecosystem at large. This was a massive task but one I firmly believe we’ve been able to accomplish. With this in mind though, propagating GPI’s actual rankings has never been the end goal but rather a tool. A tool that we’re now keen on leveraging in order to realize the second phase of GPI's larger vision: Promote poker as a Sport, and build an effective new marketing vertical that capable of hosting partners evolving the game as a commercial industry.
The GPI rankings have also given us the legitimacy to run the American Poker Awards (held February 27th, 2015, at the SLS Hotel in Beverly Hills), and theEuropean Poker Awards (held March 25th, 2015 in Malta), and provided us with the Industry traction to launch of two of our most ambitious challenges to date:
The first is The Global Poker Masters - Poker's World Cup. Like the Ryder Cup or the Davis Cup, this unique international Poker Championship puts the focus on competing nations rather than individual players. This event will define what a genuinely ‘Sport-Formatted’ Poker event can accomplish, and get legions of viewers engaged as the world’s 8 best nations and 40 of the best players compete for Poker dominance.
Our second initiative is geared to disrupt the way we expose poker today, so stay tuned :-)
The Global poker Index (GPI) is operating fully loaded when it comes to creativity- all of it focused on finding the right way to connect with and activate the estimated 100+ million of Poker fans in the world today. It won’t be easy, and nothing is guaranteed - but when you have the right cards and enough chips, its only a matter of skill and determination. Just like Poker.
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* Live Poker as the Global Poker Index describes specifically refers to the Multi-Table Tournament Poker format in landed-based venues (Festivals & Events). This does not include Poker Cash Games and Online Poker events of any kind.
