3-Barrels of pure value including more news on the $400m deal between The World Poker Fund Holdings and Soulja Boy; PokerTribe.com launches to the international market, and Poker Central host a hybrid poker/eSports event called ‘World’s Collide.’
Did the World Poker Fund Holdings (WPFH) agree to pay the young rap star Soulja Boy $400m in a five-year endorsement deal?
We thought the likelihood was a little out in space, and the WPFH PR firm 1-800-PublicRelations Inc. has confirmed so during an interview with Shawn Setaro.
Setaro is the host of the hip-hop podcast The Cipher, former Editor-in-Chief of the music magazine Rap Genius, and freelance musical contributor for all the top online rags.
Writing a piece for Forbes.com, Setaro questions how a relatively new enterprise can afford to pay a young rapper $400m in endorsements when they only have a market cap of $52m, and according to their annual reports, made a loss of $400,000 during the last financial year.
Setaro reached out to the PR company President Matthew Bird to ask him to make sense of the numbers that made little sense. Bird put the whole fiasco down to youthful exuberance.
“He really kind of jumped the gun,” Bird told Setaro, “He’s young, he’s 25 years old. He got really excited, and he tweeted something he probably shouldn’t have tweeted.”
$400 million deal confirmed. I still they think they low balled me though. I was thinking 2 or 3 billion..
— Soulja Boy (@souljaboy) May 1, 2016
So it’s not a full cash transaction then?
“This is not a full cash transaction,” said Bird.
It’s not the first time that Soulja Boy has been caught trying to keep up with the Dan Bilzerian’s. In 2011, he was caught telling porkies pies on Twitter about owning a $55 million G5 jet.
Every cloud has a silver lining. The brands connected to Soulja Boy and the WPFH have reached a lot of eyeballs this past week making me wonder if it was youthful exuberance, or perhaps expert marketing?
PokerTribe.com Launches Free to Play Version
Following the trail of breadcrumbs created by WPFH, Soulja Boy’s chances of owning a G5 jet relied heavily on the success of the online gaming assets they recently acquired from Universal Entertainment Group (UEG).
Amongst those assets was an online gaming platform purchased by The Iowa Tribe of Oklahoma called PokerTribe.com (not to be confused with the online platform acquired by The Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes of Oklahoma PokerTribes.com for the princely sum of $9.4m).
At the back end of last week, PokerTribe.com launched offering free play poker, casino, and bingo games. United States residents (except those in Oklahoma) can access and play on the site. More importantly, the site is open to international markets where the law allows them to play.
The move into the free play market is the first of a multi-phase plan that involves offering a real money experience to the international markets. The master plan will also include reaching out to the ‘in-flight’ entertainment business via InSkyCasino.com, another portal previously owned by UEG now belonging to WPFH.
Poker Central Host eSports/Poker Hybrid Event
Poker Central, the world’s only 24/7 Poker TV Channel, are breaking into the choppy waters of the eSports business, with the announcement that they will host a unique event that crosses both eSports and poker boundaries.
The event dubbed ‘World’s Collide” will see the stars of poker take on the stars of eSports in a Swiss style tournament covering three different games: PokerStars’ Jackpot Poker, Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone, and Hipster Whale’s Pac-Man 256.
Poker Central will sponsor the poker team. Incumbents include Poker Central’s Maria Ho, World Series of Poker (WSOP) bracelet winner Doug Polk, and Community Development and Poker Manager at Twitch, Scott Ball.
Amazon Coins will sponsor the eSports team that includes Victor “Vlps” Lopez, Team Liquid’s Hsdogdog, and SK-Gaming Team’s Esteban ‘AKAWonder’ Serrano.
The event will be streamed live on Poker Central’s Twitch platform Tuesday, May 24 from 2-6 (PST).
