Poker Has Arrived
0 Comments Published by Rachel Thomas on Saturday, September 24, 2005 at 10:15 AM.
The game long associated with smoky basements, alcohol and back room gambling has definitely become mainstream in America. High rollers playing a wide variety of games are now broadcast to homes across America on a significant number of television channels.
The game's significance became extremely apparent over the last week when World Poker Tour Enterprises sued its own television outlet, the Travel Channel, and Discovery Communications, Inc. WPTE initiated the suit because of Discovery's reported interference with a deal reached between WPTE and the ESPN for a newly televised poker series that would appear on the top sports network in the country.
According to WPTE, it offered the new show, called the Professional Poker Tour, to the Travel Channel as specified in a contract between WPTE and Discovery Communications. WPTE contends that their contract with Discovery allows WPTE to develop other poker-related programming provided it gives its parent channel first opportunity at the developed shows as well as a right of final refusal.
WPTE alleges it proposed its new show in July 2004 but that negotiations with Discovery were unsuccessful. After exhausting the specified time under an exclusive contract window, WPTE began seeking other outlets for the show.
WPTE reached an agreement with the ESPN on September 12. Because of the right of last refusal specified in the contract, Discovery still had a fifteen day window under which it could match the ESPN offer.
Instead, WPTE, alleges that the response of the Travel Channel parent company was to send letters to WPTE and ESPN threatening legal action, insisting that the Travel Channel had already licensed the new show. WPTE vehemently denied any such license had been granted, then initiated its suit against Discovery Communications.
Long associated with dark, dingy rooms and penny bets, nothing could be more symbolic of the game's making mainstream sports America than a show on the ESPN or the prospect of legal challenges and counter suits initiated by both sides, WPTE and Discovery Communications, Inc.
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