Global Poker League in deal with Sina Sports

Tuesday April 19,2016 :  GLOBAL POKER LEAGUE IN MAJOR CHINESE MEDIA DEAL
 
Plenty of brand awareness and publicity will flow from partnership.
 
Alex Drefus, founder of The Global Poker League (GPL) has announced a major new agreement with Chinese online sports platform Sina Sports, which will become the official digital media partner of the League in China.
 
The agreement includes extensive publicity coverage and more than 400 hours of streamed GPL competitions via Sina Sports’ dedicated poker channel.
 
The announcement additionally suggests that new investment in the League has been secured from Chinese venture capital company Ceyuan Venture and Head and Shoulders Capital in Hong Kong, although the material does not indicate what form, or how much, the investment involves.
 
The brand awareness and publicity opportunities afforded by the deal with Sina.com are significant – the website generates 15 million web users and 26 million mobile users every day.
 
Sina Sports exec Arthur Wei predicts that the years ahead will see his company acknowledged as the organisation that introduced the GPL to China.
 
The press statement also reveals that the GPL is to grow in Asia with the introduction of an Asian-focused franchise on the mainland of China, probably next year in Beijing.
 
Drefus continues to insist that the GPL is distancing itself from the gambling label usually associated with poker. He is instead promoting the game as a skilled spectator sport and even an eSports offering.
 
Certainly poker fans will be hearing a lot more about the GPL through Dreyfus media deals like Sina Sports and the earlier agreement with USA Today