Heartland Poker Tour Locks in PokerStars as Title Sponsor

“It gives us a lot of street cred,” said Greg Lang about the Heartland Poker Tour’s new title sponsor, PokerStars. “We’re very excited about it. I think PokerStars.net is going to provide us exposure in the poker arena in a way we haven’t been able to get yet.

Lang, the executive producer and one of the founders of the Heartland Poker Tour, said that the new sponsorships show how far the tour has come since its creation in 2005.

“We’ve kind of reached critical mass,” said Lang. “We’re on about 100 million households every week in the U.S.”

The Heartland Poker Tour will produce about 18-20 events this year. Lang estimates that the typical event sees anywhere from 1,000 to 3,000 players with main events ranging from about 200-400 competitors. Prize pools for the tour’s events often exceed $500,000.

The new PokerStars sponsorship will give the online poker giant access to advertising in these tournaments, which are played in states all around the country — including Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, South Dakota, and Oklahoma.

As the title sponsor, PokerStars will be able to advertise in the casinos where the events are held — through banners and gear and the like — as well as on the TV broadcasts. The fifth season of the tour will now be known on TV as the ‘Heartland Poker Tour, presented by PokerStars.’

Lang said that there are no immediate plans to run satellites online into the tour’s events, but that he is hopeful something can be worked out in the future.

The sponsorship deal is for one year, with an option for PokerStars to renew the deal for an additional two years.

“For a small company like us, it’s a really big deal,” said Lang. “The players are stoked about it.”

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