Poker Central has teamed up with NBC Sports Group to deliver poker content across its broadcast and digital platforms. The first program is scheduled to be shown during summer 2017 on the NBC Sports Network on Monday nights and is likely to be Poker Central’s popular high stakes event Super High Roller Bowl.
The tie-up is another step in the direction of making high stakes poker entertainment accessible to a wider audience. A larger roster of events is being put together for roll out throughout 2017.
In a statement, JR McCabe, Chief Digital Officer of Poker Central said
With our large slate of premier tournaments combined with our experienced team of content creators, Poker Central is creating a comprehensive platform that truly stands out in a CROWDED content space. Partnering with the distinguished NBC Sports Group allows us to distribute our content to a platform agnostic audience
Poker Central launched at the end of 2015 and billed itself as a 24/7 poker content provider that covered tournaments, cash games as well as the poker lifestyle. The company is owned by entrepreneur and high-stakes poker player Cary Katz. The company started out with the objective of being a poker-focused TV channel but decided last year to shift to a digital-only platform from 2017 onwards.
Poker Central president Joe Kakaty had said at that time that the decision was made after the company found that it was better at social media and mobile-oriented programming than at the regular network programs.
This deal with NBC would help Poker Central to plug the gap in terms of reaching a television audience. NBC would also benefit from the partnership as it would help the network deliver new poker content to its existing poker viewers and also bring in a new audience.
Poker Central's 2017 Super High Roller Bowl will have the largest buy-in for the year at $300,000. The high stakes event will have top poker players of the world participating as well as one surprise celebrity player.
Players will be battling for a share of the stunning $16.8 million prize pool which is said to be one of the biggest prizes of this year. The eventual champion will take home the first prize of $6 million.The event sold out in less than a day’s time earlier this year after which Poker Central increased the cap to 56 players.
Poker Central’s content will be available across all key digital properties of NBC such as NBCSports.com and the dedicated app for NBC Sports.
