There are rumors circulating throughout the Internet that Full Tilt Poker is going to refuse to allow any of their poker pros to appear in the new season of High Stakes Poker. It is all the result of disputes with a competitor, PokerStars.
The televised Texas hold’em game show began broadcast in 2006. This year, PokerStars purchased the show and became its top sponsor. As such, you can expect to see the PokerStars logo on the poker table and elsewhere. In addition to buying the rights for the current show, PokerStars also bought rights to the archive, which allows them to show old episodes of the previous six seasons on their website, PokerStars.tv.
As a result, Full Tilt Poker doesn’t want any of their poker pros to appear on the show. That would mean losing big names like Tom Dwan and Phil Ivey. Barry Greenstein, a Full Tilt poker pro who has appeared in each of the first six seasons of High Stakes Poker, refutes the rumor that he and other Full Tilt players won’t be allowed to appear in the season. He did, however, acknowledge that they are unhappy with the situation.
The obvious problem is that Full Tilt doesn’t want their players appearing on a show sponsored by PokerStars. The other reason they are unhappy with PokerStars is due to their purchase of the archives. “In the early seasons of HSP, the players didn’t wear logos,” he said, “so FTP is concerned that viewers will be able to go to PokerStars.tv and see the FTP players without logos and be confused about their affiliation.”
All of that is understandable, but it doesn’t answer the question: Will there be any Full Tilt poker pros on the seventh season of High Stakes Poker? The seventh and final season of the show is due to begin filming this week, with the show airing early next year on the Game Show Network in the U.S.
January 5th, 2011 at 8:50 am
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