Oct 17 2011
NBC cancels Heads-Up Poker Championship
written by: Steve under News Comments: Comments Off
Chalk up yet another casualty to Black Friday, as multiple sources have confirmed that NBC has decided to pull the plug on the popular “made-for-TV” poker tournament. WickedChops Poker was the first to break the story after receiving confirmation from NBC Sports Senior Director of Communications Adam Freifeld (who posses one of the longest titles I have ever seen) that the show would not be returning in 2012, but he did leave open the possibility of a return in the future.
The NBC National Heads-Up Championship had an impressive seven-year run, and utilized a unique, invitation-only, format that consisted of the top poker talent in the world as well as a handful of poker enthusiast celebrities –players were responsible for the $20k buy-ins required to enter the event.
The tournament relied heavily on advertising revenue from the major online poker sites, and with the expulsion of Full Tilt Poker and PokerStars from the US market, the ad-buys were simply not there. Thus far the only major televised poker shows that have survived the Black Friday pinch are the World Poker Tour, the World Series of Poker (which has more mainstream sponsors to go along with online poker sites) and the popular high-stakes cash-game, GSN’s High Stakes Poker. Falling by the wayside in the aftermath of Black Friday were the PokerStars Big Game, Poker After Dark, the PokerStars NAPT, as well as the nixing of Full Tilt Poker’s Onyx Cup before it even started.
Here is a look at the past winners of the NBC National Heads-Up Poker Championship:
- 2005 – Phil Hellmuth
- 2006 – Ted Forrest
- 2007 – Paul Wasicka
- 2008 – Chris Ferguson
- 2009 – Huck Seed
- 2010 – Annie Duke
- 2011 – Erik Seidel
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