‘Think big’ is the motto for Alex Dreyfus. In his vision of sportifying poker, he has attacked all poker related age old business strategies.
First in line were the American Poker Conference and the American Poker Awards. Then what followed was the Global Poker Masters. Now he has set his eyes on the Global Poker League.
In the view of Dreyfus, poker does not count as a sport. In fact, he truly believes that poker should instead be sold as a sports commodity, complete with an amazing experience.
Similar to NASCAR, which gives importance to the drivers as well as sponsors, he wants to build a structure and put up the best players on sale. Dreyfus believes that he is able to create a similar model which will attract poker enthusiasts and make it easy for them to meet the same set of players every week.
Alex Dreyfus on USPoker, said that $4.9 million (with the aid of China) has been set aside as an investment towards this goal of his. This money will help him build the GPL, and he plans to employ marketing and sales consultants from the sports industry to widen the companies’ network. He is also planning to extend his present team of 15 to 25.
Dreyfus says that such people will boost the performance of the company by asking questions pertaining to problem areas (if any).
US as the Central Market
In spite of China providing the chunk of investment, Dreyfus holds US as the key to his dreams. Since US is the place where poker was born, the States and North America would take up almost a half of the marketing share. Europe along with Latin America will follow next with a 30% share while Asia would have to be happy with a 10% hold.
Dreyfus is also wary about the fact that online poker is not legalized in the US. Although he supports the legalization, he won’t be promoting the same. But he maintains that his commodities will add to the online poker cause and he aims to promote the cause through TV.
Poker minus gambling
Dreyfus was tight lipped about the locations of the GPL matches but gave out the following details :
- The best 1000 players will be picked individually.
- The players would need to give their consent to be included in the league.
- The players will go through a selection process.
- The selected players are afterwards bartered or cut.
From the spectator point of view he will know the participating players of a team and he will get to see only the best players.
How Dreyfus is building the company?
Alex Dreyfus has merged small time poker brands into a bigger one. Starting with GPI, he went on to add Hendon Mob, European Poker Awards, then the American Poker Awards followed by Global Poker Masters and finally the Fantasy Poker Manager. These companies are shaping up the League.
The efforts of Dreyfus have finally started to bear fruit. It was recently announced that the GPI has bagged a media deal with the likes of USA Today, where the newspaper will have a dedicated page related to poker and GPI. It will also cover the upcoming GPL.
The GPL will have teams (12 to be precise) from various cities across the world and they will be divided as the Americas and the EurAsia. Each match will be held in a Cube, equipped with a one way and soundproof glass. The play will be telecast live to the viewers. The games will also have live updates on USA Today’s web site.
Alex Dreyfus feels that the partnership will act as a podium to display the events and boost the players from the GPI. The vice president of the newspaper’s sports media wing too believes that GPI is playing a prominent role to bring poker together on one platform. The news edition would work hand in hand with GPI to come up with constant digital poker updates.
Some tidbits about GPL
Under the able leadership of Alexandre Dreyfus, who is the CEO as well as owner of MediaRex Sports and Entertainment, the Global Poker League has now joined the elite club. The sports and entertainment company runs the GPL, after acquisitions of GPI and TheHendonMob. Alex Dreyfus on MaltaIGamingSubmmit admitted that his company forms the core of poker industry with around 4 million poker players using their services, every year. It is also a proud owner of the biggest and the oldest real time poker database which covers 2,70,000 events worldwide.
The GPL showcases 400 hours of poker via Twitch.tv, USA Today, Sina.com.cn and some other channels. The GPL has 12 professional sports teams such as Rome Emperors, London Royals, Berlin Bears, Los Angeles Sunset, etc. These engage 72 top poker professionals of the world in a season of 20 weeks, along with a final match live from Wembley Arena, London.
