Everest Poker Sues WSOP

Everest Poker, the biggest on-the-felt sponsor for the World Series of Poker, reportedly told Harrah\’s officials yesterday not only that they are pulling out of a three-year sponsorship deal with the WSOP, but also that their parent company, Ultra Internet Media, is suing the WSOP\’s parent company, Harrah\’s, alleging breach of contract.

Fun! Now we get to see the types of numbers that Harrah\’s, as a private company, would probably prefer to keep private … and we get to watch our friends at WSOP headquarters scramble for a new sponsor while, two months before the 2010 Series, they learn that an $8.4 million check they were expecting is not going to arrive.

From the Las Vegas Sun:

UIM says that in 2008 it agreed to sponsor the World Series of Poker for payments of $6.2 million for the 2008 tournament, $7.9 million for the 2009 tournament and $8.4 million for the 2010 tournament that begins May 27 at Harrah’s Rio hotel-casino in Las Vegas.

[…]

UIM says in the lawsuit it paid the amounts due to Harrah’s for the 2008 and 2009 events, but that on Thursday it notified Harrah’s it is pulling out of the 2010 tournament.

UIM said that’s because in previous years Harrah’s breached the sponsorship deal when ESPN broadcasts of the tournament by an affiliate in France, television channel RTL9, failed to display Everest’s name and logo and instead featured the name and logo of Everest competitor Full Tilt Poker.

French TV has caused poker troubles before. Previously an unresolved matter of translations supposedly resulted in Daniel Negreanu\’s removing himself from the Poker After Dark line-up … the problem being that the French television station airing the show was claiming that Negreanu played exclusively at Full Tilt, when in fact he is clearly a PokerStars guy.

Meanwhile, Pokerati now knows we saved $7.899992 million getting our logo on the WSOP felts in 2009 … and thus we\’re not too pissed that this image has not yet made it onto French TV:

UPDATE: New reality show idea … 2 Months, $10 Million … the Harrah\’s crew are ready to put on the biggest show in poker after having promised to just give away money to their top players, but then a French TV dispute leads to what poker players would call a \”bad beat\” … can Team WSOP pull it all together and save the Series before cards go in the air? Tune in next week to find out. A

UPDATE: Funny take on it all + a photo of the French TV shenanigans at the center of this WSOdisPute.