When it was conceived, the Alexandre Dreyfus-driven Global Poker League looked as if it would be “The One” attempt at making poker more “sport-like” that survived when others failed. A recent announcement has cast some doubt on that, however, as the GPL looks to end its inaugural season on a high note.
According to Will Shillibier of BackdoorQuads.com, the GPL has decided to NOT hold their end of season playoffs – the matches that would determine the teams for the inaugural GPL World Championship – at TwitchCon 2016 in San Diego. That event, which begins on September 30 and ends on October 2, will instead be replaced with a “Meet, Greet & Play” event that will feature some of the stars of the GPL (no names have been announced at this time).
Dreyfus looks at the change as a chance to present the GPL to the eSports community, stating, “The GPL and Twitch are expanding their partnership to promote poker as an eSport. We are thrilled to expose (the GPL) to the largest eSport community and connect poker fans and GPL players. TwitchCon 2016 is the perfect spot to help make that happen and it is another step in our GPL Fan Engagement strategy of ‘Watch’Em, Play’Em, Shop’Em.”
This isn’t the only change that is occurring for the GPL. The original plan was for the GPL to hold its World Championship Event – where two teams from each conference would have played down to an eventual World Champion – at the SSE Arena at Wembley Stadium. This was supposed to have happened in November, but it has now been eliminated totally. All that Shillibier could find out about the cancelation of the date in London from SSE Arena personnel was that they “didn’t know what happened to the event.”
So where will the playoffs and the concluding World Championship be held? If you recall the Summer Series – where the teams in the GPL competed live from Las Vegas – then you’ve already got a look at what will be the stage come this fall. The “GPL Arena,” as it has been dubbed, will host both the playoffs and the World Championship, presumably under live circumstances and inside “The Cube,” which made its debut during the Summer Series.
Shillibier also had inside information from several surveys that were conducted by Mediarex, the company that Dreyfus owns that operates the GPL. The information from those surveys wasn’t exactly glowing of the product that the audience was seeing, stating in many cases that their level of desire to be a part of the GPL action was quite limited. The respondents stated that they didn’t want to buy GPL merchandise (58.8%), that they wouldn’t want to play a Fantasy Poker real money game using GPL players (43.2%) and that they wouldn’t want to bet real money on GPL matches (62.5%), among other items. Add in the factor that 66.7% of respondents to the survey said that they had heard of the GPL but a majority of those people had not watched it and the emergency beacons are blinking.
So what has been the problems? Rumors have it that moving their playing arena – “The Cube” – to Las Vegas for the Summer Series put a serious hurt on the bank accounts of the GPL, so much so that it couldn’t be transferred to San Diego for TwitchCon and then to London for the World Championship. There are also the issues with the monetization of the league, which Dreyfus has admitted previously was a significant problem. The bottom line, however, may have been the factor that the GPL is primarily an internet “thing” and not “live” poker, which many fans thought it was going to be and, after seeing that it was online poker being played, turned away from the product.
In a discussion with Poker News Daily, Dreyfus didn’t exactly open up about the reasons for the changes nor what the future would hold. “We are preparing a press release as we speak (that will address these issues),” Dreyfus stated (that press release has not been seen). Dreyfus also stated that there was more of a “long term” plan for the GPL rather than knee-jerk short term changes and that the priority was on “the digital passengers” (presumably meaning the online viewers and fans over the GPL Twitch account).
Even with the pleas continuing for patience and to wait for the GPL to mature, anyone can see there are some glaring problems with the program. What the effects will be after their restart on September 20 – a quick six-week burst of league matches that will determine the four participants from each conference who will compete in the playoffs that begin on November 29 – and the potential for a second season for the GPL will reflect how those problems are being handled.
