Poker entrepreneur and CEO-founder of Mediarex Sports & Entertainment, Alex Dreyfus says he wants to expand his Global Poker Index project to embrace eSports.
“For the last two or three years, we’ve tried to bridge the eSports vertical, because my team and I believe that one of the angles we can use to promote poker is by focusing more on the competitive gaming element,” he said in a statement to Poker News this week.
He added that the industry should try and build more gateways between the two environments due to the importance of eSports to a new generation of live and online poker players.
“The World Poker Tour audience is 55-year-olds on Fox and ESPN, and appealing to them doesn’t attract the new demographic to whom poker really appeals,” Dreyfus said.
“If we don’t renew the reservoir of players and fans, then the game will dry up. I’m not talking about money, but interest and exposure. The eSports industry is not something that has come along last month, but has been building for the last 15 years.”
Dreyfus noted that a growing number of professional sports companies are investing and engaging with eSports in a way that they have not done with poker.