The inaugural season of the Global Poker League (GPL) kicks off next week with its first live matches taking place on Tuesday 5th April, livestreamed on GPL.TV and Twitch. Over the course of the next six months, 12 franchise teams will go head-to-head throughout season, culminating in a live Playoff event in North America, before heading to Wembley for the first ever GPL Finals on 22-23rd November 2016.
Inspired by initiatives developed by the likes of the NBA, eSports and the UFC, the GPL is attempting to bring together a fragmented audience of 100 million worldwide poker fans via 400+ hours of livestreamed content throughout the regular GPL season.
Global Poker League President Alex Dreyfus notes, “While there is a huge existing fan base for poker, it is largely fragmented because of the isolated nature of existing poker initiatives. GPL has an aggressive vision to build new storylines and narratives to engage poker fans with the poker stars playing in the league.”
Season 1 of the Global Poker League will be broken down into 4 different phases:
The GPL Regular Season: 5th April 2016 – 22nd September 2016 – Three match days per week every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. All livestreamed and following an esports broadcast format with competitive online matches on GPL’s own game platform.
The GPL Summer Series: 6th June 2016 – 8th July 2016 – 33 Days of daily Heads-Up battles filmed live on location in GPL’s Las Vegas Studio.
The GPL Playoffs: (Dates TBA) – The Global Poker League’s ‘Final 8’ – play down for four places in the GPL Finals.
The GPL Finals: 22nd-23rd November 2016 – Live from London at The SSE Arena, Wembley, where the first ever Global Poker League Champion will be crowned.
Full schedule for Season 1 of the GPL is available at: www.globalpokerleague.com/schedule/
While the bulk of the Global Poker League’s content distribution will be via GPL.TV and its own mobile applications (set to be launched during the summer of 2016) Mediarex Sports & Entertainment, GPL’s parent company, has built an extensive distribution network distribution to ensure maximum exposure for the league across outlets such as USA Today Sports, Twitch.tv, DouyuTV in China and PokerCentral among many others. GPL is gearing up to increase its strategic partnerships after the launch of the league locally and globally, including simultaneous multi-lingual livestreams.