The World Poker Tour is one of the top live poker brands in the world. If you are a WPT fan or a poker player, you must be familiar with the high quality articles, live poker tournaments updates, and social media posts done for you by their amazing media team. There has been an experienced team behind this content on the brand’s website and social media platforms for years.
In an unexpected move a few days back, the World Poker Tour laid off its entire media and content team. This came to the fore when Lance Bradley, Editor-in-Chief for the World Poker Tour, took to X to announce to the poker world that he along with his entire content team were moving on from the company.
This post left a lot of fans and people in the Industry wondering as to why the World Poker Tour laid off its entire team, that too without a prior notice. The team has been doing a fantastic job and it’s evident from the articles, live reports, videos and photos on the WPT’s website and not to forget the brand’s social media presence, thanks to their content team.
While lay-offs are quite common but it is rare to see the brands firing their media entire team. While this whole situation raises a lot of questions, no clear reason or answer for this bold clean sweep have been received from the brand so far.
At least some key people should have stayed there to write content to engage the community, coordinate with players, do live reporting and handle social media posts. But all the people who handled these tasks seem to have lost their jobs, including the highly talented Lance Bradley, who served as Editor-in-Chief and Vice President of Media at the WPT and won 4 Global Poker Awards, including 3 of them for written content.
Among other big names fired were Creative Senior Editor Jeff Walsh, Tim Fiorvanti, a senior editor with over a decade of experience in content, social media manager Easton Oreman, content coordinator Evan McColl, Media Relations Manager Erik Lusch and the list goes on.
More surprisingly, all this comes ahead of the WPT Cambodia festival, which kicks off in a few days on 6th February. Now people in the community are wondering if they will be able to see the live coverage or the articles for the upcoming WPT Cambodia event on the WPT website?
The highly talented media and content team comprising aforementioned people has been with WPT for years and it has widely been appreciated for their amazing work, be it articles, live reporting, social media posts, photos, and videos. It is certainly shocking and many in the poker community have expressed their regrets over their unexpected layoff, including Maria Ho, Barry Carter (nominated for Best Twitter Personality recently), Jeff Platt, Jason Glatzer, Tony Dunst, and many more.
What is your take on this move by WPT? Do you think that this bold clean sweep was the right decision by WPT? Let us know in the comments. Keep following PokerProNews for more such updates and news from the world of poker.
Source – WPT, Lance Bradley X, PokerFuse & PokerIndustryPro
