IPT Tour to Air Live Across Europe

JAM

I am the storm
Silver Member
INTERNATIONAL POOL TOUR TO AIR LIVE ACROSS EUROPE
Major deal with Eurosport Gives Pool its Biggest Live Platform Ever

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

London UK (May 31st, 2006): The International Pool Tour has announced the most comprehensive live broadcast rights package in the history of the sport with its newly-minted deal with Eurosport, the leading tv sports network and multimedia platform throughout Europe. Eurosport and British Eurosport will show live, prime-time coverage of every round of all major IPT events in 2006. The Pan-European network will also air a number of produced IPT highlights programs, including the recent “King of the Hill 8-Ball Shootout.” Plans call for approximately two hours nightly of live coverage.

The announcement was made by IPT Founder Kevin Trudeau at a major press conference held today at the Hard Rock Café in London. The press event was attended by most of the major UK media, as well as a number of IPT players such as snooker legend Ronnie O’Sullivan, Gerda Hofstatter, Nick Van den Berg, Vincent Facquet, and a number of other players from the UK. The Hard Rock Café cleared out their main dining room to make room for the pool table, reporters, and television cameras. For pictures of the press conference, please visit http://email.global-profiles.com/go...&m160659&http://www.internationalpooltour.com.

Eurosport, the first pan-European sports channel created in 1989, is now available in 19 different languages, reaches over 107 million homes and over 240 million viewers across 54 countries. British Eurosport, which will also provide live coverage of the IPT, is the most widely available sports channel in the UK, reaching over 10 million homes.

“Eurosport is proud and excited to welcome the International Pool Tour to our line-up of prestigious, world-class sports and sporting events,’ said Arnaud Simon, Eurosport’s Head of Programs. “The IPT clearly is the leader in worldwide pool and we believe our commitment to air its major events live will generate a huge amount of interest in both the sport and its players all across Europe.”

The International Pool Tour joins other major sports franchises on Eurosport including the Winter & Summer Olympics, soccer’s World Cup, Grand Slam Tennis, The Tour De France cycling championship and other top sports organizations such as the PGA Tour. The comprehensive live coverage of the IPT will introduce 8-ball and pool to millions of sports fans in Germany, France, the Netherlands, Italy, the UK and across Europe.

“This broadcast deal truly signals the emergence of 8-Ball as a major, world-class sport,” said IPT Founder Trudeau. “Eurosport has the most prestigious events and the best TV coverage and now sports fans throughout Europe can experience the live drama, pressure and excitement of the International Pool Tour.”

The IPT, the pool world’s unrivaled leader in both quality of play and prize money, features the world’s most acclaimed players, including many from Europe such as Germany’s Thorsten Hohmann and Ralf Soquet, Finland’s Mika Immonen, Austria’s Gerda Hofstatter, Nick Van Den Berg and Neils Feijin of the Netherlands, the UK’s Raj Hundal and British snooker stars O’Sullivan and Jimmy White, amongst many others. For the complete IPT player roster, click here.

The first live IPT event to be aired on Eurosport will be the North American 8-Ball Open Championship held at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas from July 22nd-July 30th. Players will be competing for $2 million, the largest prize money in the sport’s history. For the complete IPT schedule, including tournament formats and prize money payouts, visit http://email.global-profiles.com/go...&m160659&http://www.internationalpooltour.com.

IPT Executive Director Jon Denny promises unprecedented and exciting production value on the live broadcasts. “Simply put,” said Denny, “No other cue sport will match it.”

Other major worldwide broadcast deals are expected to be announced shortly by IPT officials.


It keeps getting better and better! :)

JAM
 
HI Jennie,

this is one of the best news so far regarding the IPT. Eurosport is a channel that can be received (free of charge) all over EUROPE. It sure will give Pool Billiards a much better exposure than ever. The news about Eurosport spread in minutes through the German billiards forum (http://www.billard-aktuell.de). Since this forum includes our german speaking neighbours from Austria and Switzerland people over here will watch every second of the broadcasts.

Chapeau KT and IPT to make sure that Europe is not cut off from the IPT Live coverage..

Markus
 
Wow, I love Gerda's new Marilyn Monroe look! Live coverage? Great news for the billiards world for sure. Hope it can be done in the US and other countries as well.
 
Last edited:
Eurosport is covering world snooker events live also, and now IPT!. This is just great news.
 
It seems the execs over at Eurosport don't think the IPT is a sinking ship.

Are we now allowed to enjoy another step forward for the IPT without being labelled as blinded excuse makers?

It's great news and I can't wait for coming announcements of other broadcasting deals.
 
Colin Colenso said:
It seems the execs over at Eurosport don't think the IPT is a sinking ship.

Are we now allowed to enjoy another step forward for the IPT without being labelled as blinded excuse makers?

It's great news and I can't wait for coming announcements of other broadcasting deals.

I was thinking the same thing! Pretty impressive for a tour that some would have you think is falling apart at the seams!
Steve
 
Some major announcements before the 1st tour event starting......LIVE TV for all 2006 events on Eurosport......prime time TV in the USA.

The future looks bright for the IPT. :)
 
jjinfla said:
Oh wait. Tomorrow five more qualifiers start and I am sure they will find fault with something.

We're leaving for Frederick, MD in a few hours for the IPT qualifier. Because of four pool events occuring simultaneously this weekend, I have no idea how many people will show up to compete. There's the 14.1 World Pool Championship, Bushwhacker's $4,000-added Pennsylvania State 9-Ball Championship, Tiger/Planet Pool 9-Ball Tour event in Rockville, MD, and the other IPT qualifier in Ohio. I spoke to Sparky Ferrell yesterday via cell phone, and he was in Georgia en route to Ohio for the IPT qualifier. Good luck to Sparky!

The only player I know for sure who is coming to Frederick is a local guy whose been playing pool since he was knee-high. His mom and dad have been prominent in the pool community for years. He used to be a junior competitor in his younger days, though now he's a family man with a job. When I spoke to him the other night and he mentioned to me that he signed up to play, he was grinning from ear to ear. He's looking forward to it, as am I.

The owner of the pool room, Champions in Frederick, MD, purchased the IPT products for this event, wanting to be an established stopping place for future IPT qualifiers.

Spadevil, you looked GREAT in the photo shoot in England. Bravo to you for making the 400-mile journey to support the IPT tour. See you in Vegas.

JAM
 
Colin Colenso said:
It seems the execs over at Eurosport don't think the IPT is a sinking ship.

Are we now allowed to enjoy another step forward for the IPT without being labelled as blinded excuse makers?

It's great news and I can't wait for coming announcements of other broadcasting deals.

Colin,
there always will be people trying to find (as we say here) "the hair in the soup"....I don't know why this happens all the time. Instead of supporting the IPT (or any other organisation) to establish the first real professional tour where players might be able to achieve true professional status (professional= to make a decent living from you talent) some crawl out of the shadow just to complain about everything. I wonder what these people have done for the development of pool billiards as a professional sport....??

Markus
 
alexandracunha said:
hi!
i live in portugal and the only channel i can watch is eurosport, can you tell me when i can see the ipt games?

The first tournament which will air live is the IPT North American 8-Ball Championship, which will be held in Las Vegas, Nevada (USA), on July 22-30, 2006. Check out the IPT website for more information: http://www.internationalpooltour.com

So, if it will be aired live in Portugal, then I believe that July 22nd will be the date of the first broadcast.

Welcome to the forum, alexandracunha! :)

JAM
 
many thanks, jam!
i hope you can understand my english.....
i have been two times in las vegas, and what i think it's american people are very kind!
 
Yes, welcome Barbie! Did you play in the Masters or the Open division in Vegas?

With the announcement of live TV coverage, the ardent naysayers have been noticeably absent - MacGuy, Gabber, Dr. Dissent (aka WPA Board Member), etc. Gee, maybe these tournaments really WILL happen! :p
 
Colin Colenso said:
It seems the execs over at Eurosport don't think the IPT is a sinking ship.

Are we now allowed to enjoy another step forward for the IPT without being labelled as blinded excuse makers?


Unfortunately Colin there will always be people who will criticize the IPT reguardless of what it does. IMO it is these people who have contributed most over the years to holding our great game back, it doesn't take a genius to see all the great things that the IPT has brought to pool players.

It may not be perfect and it certainly is gonna have it's growing pains but the IPT is doing something for the game that has never been done before.

Just my .02
 
Let's keep our fingers crossed

For decent ratings. It is great the IPT tournament is being shown live in Europe which in the long run may be a better option for the IPT in the future for their home base rather than the U.s. With live coverage it could really take off in Europe as delayed broadcasts in the U.S. will surely hurt ratings except for us die hard pool fanatics. It is a great accomplishment to have the OLN pick up these vents but I would like to point out it is going to be difficult to get ratings of any kind due to the channels obscurity and not available to everyone. A case in point, last week they showed the NHL playoff games and the best rating they got was .04, for a playoff game that was live. That is about 9600 people watching. That is not very encouraging but I am sure when poker first started on the Travel Channel the ratings were piss poor also until that little key of showing cards caught on worldwide and now everyone watches. I hope the IPT comes up with the key to get people to watch. I know I will be doing my part in preadvertising the program for Sunday night and showing the first event on my big screen televisions instead of hockey, basketball or baseball which I will regulate to the small screens for this once a week time slot. lol.
Dick Cady
Fast Eddys Billiards
Capitola, Ca.
A staunch supporter of the IPT.
 
streaming live in billiards doesn't seem to be as worth it as in other industries.

My guess is room owners would be better off doing thematic short films involving classic billiard scenes, cliffhangers are the key.
 
Back
Top