Poker Sports League Broadcast Rights Acquired by DSPORT

The Indian poker team championship Poker Sports League is returning for its second season. The competition will be broadcast on television on DSport, an Indian sports channel.

The Poker Sports League’s inaugural season was played last year: it’s a poker team championship, very much akin to Alex Dreyfus’s Global Poker League. Twelve teams competed both live and online over the span of 5 days in various tournament types - be it turbo, heads-up matches, freezeouts and more - and two game types, Hold’em and Omaha. Eventually, the Delhi Panthers, lead by team mentor Akash Malik, finished on top of the league’s leaderboard, winning $225K total in the course of the series.

Online qualifiers for season 2 start on January 15th. The players with the best overall performances across the 72 tournaments will be drafted by the 12 PSL teams in April.

There will be some extra excitement added in the new season, as it was recently announced that the Indian sports channel DSports, part of the Discovery Networks India will air the competition on their channel with English commentary. This will be the first time poker is televised in India.

This can be a great step to remove the stigma of “gambling” from poker in the second most populous country in the world. Recently their High Court dismissed a petition to have poker defined as a game of skill which can significantly hinder the growth of the game there.

Poker Sports League co-founder Amit Burman talked about the issue with The Economic Times:

“PSL's biggest challenge has been to overcome preconceived notions and change people's perception with regards to poker. Hence, our positioning has been clear from the very start and this will further get established by getting the league broadcasted on a sports channel. DSPORT's coverage of international sporting properties made it the natural choice." 

PSL did more than getting a TV deal to disassociate poker from plain gambling: they signed two-time world chess champion Viswanathan Anand as their new ambassador. 

Last year’s ambassador probably will not be back, however. Alec Torelli shared on his YouTube channel how he was invited to take the position in the last minute, and how he was requested to be on a plane to India within 24 hours of first speaking to a PSL representative.