An Inside Look at the Global Poker League, Part 2: Goals of the League

The Global Poker League (GPL) is in its relative infancy, with five weeks completed in a long first season. With just over one month of running time in the books, PokerNews talked with Mediarex Sports & Entertainment CEO Alexandre Dreyfus, whose company owns the GPL, The Hendon Mob, and the Global Poker Index (GPI).

In Part 2, Dreyfus talked more about improvements to the league, goals, and more.

Defining a Goal

After talking a lot about improvements that could be made to the GPL in Part 1, Dreyfus explained to us that there could be a misconception of what the GPL’s goal is.

“Sometimes I think there is a big misunderstanding in what our goal is,” shared Dreyfus. “Our first goal in year one is to target the poker community and poker fans. Our vision is that in the world right now there is 100 million poker fans outside of China. People who claim to be a fan of poker include people that sometimes play on Zynga, sometimes they play on PokerStars, or just play with friends and may not know anything about online poker or even the World Poker Tour or the World Series of Poker. The problem this creates is that poker fans are very fragmented. What this means is that when friends play at home, for example, there is no storyline or narrative where you can go back and say, ‘Hey, remember the match last night? What a hand! What a bluff!’ Our vision is that we want to aggregate the existing community in order to create a significant audience all year long. So every day, every week, there is a GPL story to be told.”

This isn’t to say that Dreyfus expects the GPL to capture the entire audience, as he would be happy if the league attracts just a small percentage of that.

“When I say I want to aggregate, it doesn’t mean we want to have a 100 million audience, as we would be happy with a one, two, five, seven percent of that,” explained Dreyfus. “We just want to tap that audience of educated poker players that doesn’t have that content that isn’t available today until now.”

From talking to Dreyfus, it becomes clear that the longterm goal of the GPL is to reach a wider audience than just those already attached to poker. If that happens, it’s a good thing for the game and one we can all benefit from.

“The next step is to reach a larger audience and to educate new potential fans, but we don’t want to do that today, except in China and maybe in some other territories where there are no real poker fans yet because the game hasn’t been exposed the same way it has been elsewhere,” shared Dreyfus.

As for the GPL’s current reach, where it’s at is a big question for many.

“While we won’t disclose exact numbers, on a weekly basis we are reaching a six-figure audience which is something that didn’t exist weeks ago,” commented Dreyfus. “Don’t forget as well that we have no marketing power. We invest zero in advertising and marketing to drive traffic to our audience and we try to just grow organically. Depending on the day on average people are watching between 31 to 41 minutes in terms of people watching our content, which is great.”

Now, while those statistics do sound great, it stuck out to us that Dreyfus said the league isn’t spending any money on marketing or advertising, as one would think those two things would need some sort of spend in order to advance the league’s growth.

“It isn’t that GPL doesn’t have resources to pay for things in the short-term, but the success of the GPL will be its ability to last long,” said Dreyfus. “Meaning that it is a marathon. It’s not a game where the winner spent the most right now. GPL has to exist for the next three to five years. To achieve …

continue reading in source www.pokernews.com