It will be interesting to see what pans out with this...sort of.
They have been decreasing the EPT events in recent years which confounded and frustrated many people. It had been obvious for a few years that attendance at live events was healthy and growing virtually everywhere around the world. I think, once again, a certain blind spot regarding direction in their operations. In short they were heading in the wrong direction.
To underline the point, I have already watched about 50 hours of EPT Prague 2019 this week but things still seem a little hazy about which venues are confirmed regarding Europe for next year. So far, Sochi will be first in March (almost exclusively for Russians) then we have Barcelona, Monte Carlo, Madrid and Prague. Essentially that's 4 European stops.
Meanwhile the likes of
unibet or
party poker are staging events in cities such as London and Paris (amongst other locations).
As I said, its a bit frustrating because I think many would really like to see as many as eight EPT tournaments on a calender year as you cannot fault the way the tournaments are presented. This year the viewing count on You Tube alone has been up to 100,000 for the Prague main event... and more and more people would like to engage with the live experience if feasible.
As for underlining their schedule for
brazil and the Philippines..they are already well established but very local and they do not draw many international eyes, even when streamed (or not in some cases) let alone international players. I have no bias on my part but it just makes way more sense to me for any large operator to concentrate on one or two markets which for better or worse are North America or Europe.
As noted, if the likes of Unibet,
888 and Party Poker can stage events in Paris or London (for example) if I was in charge of PokerStars I'd be asking why PokerStars wasn't anymore.
