“King of Beers” Signs as Official WORLD POKER TOUR Sponsor for Season IV
Budweiser to Stage Texas Hold’em Tournament In Select Markets, With Two Winners Earning a Seat at the WORLD POKER TOUR Invitational Celebrity Pro-Am.
WPT Enterprises, Inc. (NASDAQ: WPTE) welcomed Budweiser today as the Official Beer of the WORLD POKER TOUR (WPT) for the WPTs fourth exciting season of riveting televised poker on the Travel Channel. The WORLD POKER TOUR was the show that ignited the worldwide poker boom when it launched in March 2003 and continues to lead the way in developing poker as a major international sport.
Anheuser-Busch’s Budweiser television spots will air on Travel Channel’s broadcasts of Season IV. Additionally, viewers will see the Budweiser logo on the “table ring” around the Final Table arena and on in-show graphics for the WPT’s popular “hole card camera” segment. The winners of each WPT tournament will celebrate a toast with Budweiser as part of the WPT’s traditional closing sequence.
In jurisdictions where it is legal, Budweiser will support the sponsorship with retail promotions which will begin in December 2005 and will run through February 2006 with a Texas Hold’em tournament, to feature a shortened elimination version of Texas Hold’em. Players will begin each round with an equal number of chips and play until they “bust out.” Only the top chip winners will progress to the next round. Players will not pay or purchase anything to play in this tournament, but must be 21 or older. The top two players at the National Finals will secure coveted seats in the WPT Invitational, the WORLD POKER TOUR’S celebrity pro-am tournament boasting 300 players vying for a $200,000 prize pool. Skilled celebrities such as WPT Budweiser Sponsorship.
Ben Affleck, James Woods, Jennifer Tilly and Tobey Maguire have joined the roster of WPT tournament winners and leading pros who participate in the WPT Invitational. The sponsorship enables Budweiser to capitalize on the global growth of WPT viewership. The show is currently licensed for broadcast in more than 100 countries and territories around the world. The WORLD POKER TOUR, which reinvented poker as a televised spectator sport, will air tournaments filmed at leading casinos from Paris to Las Vegas, beginning with the broadcast of its fourth season in March 2006. Airing every Wednesday night in the U.S. at 9 p.m. ET/PT on the Travel Channel, the WPT is the highest-rated series in the network’s history.
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