PokerStars North American Poker Tour

There have been rumors of a new PokerStars tour in North America for some time now. PokerStars already has three tours:

• The European Poker Tour, about to start its fifth season, has long been televised and streamed over the internet. It looks to be surpassing the World Poker Tour as the leading poker tour. The last EPT Championship was the second-biggest tournament in the world by prize money, in fact, surpassing the WPT Championship.
• The Asia Pacific Poker Tour is already successful and entering its second televised season.
• The Latin American Poker Tour has had one season, and the second one will reportedly be televised (though not in English).
  

None of these tours have been broadcast in the United States, however (though they're available online and the EPT PokerStars Caribbean Adventure was broadcast in the US). The new tour is aimed squarely at North America.

PokerStars has reportedly assigned Latin American Poker Tour director Rich Korbin to run the new Canada-based tour. The early reports were that the tour would start off with tournaments in the Bahamas, Montreal, and Vancouver. There was speculation that the WPT's Niagara stop would defect to the new PokerStars tour, but they resumed running WPT satellites after the WPT got its Fox Sports Net deal. The PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (the Bahamas stop) was also belatedly added to EPT schedule, where it formerly resided (and before that it was a WPT event). It looks like it will be a while before PokerStars's fourth tour gets off the ground, but with their money, expertise, and proven success there's no doubt they could be a formidable competitor in the North American poker TV scene.