ElkY leaves PokerStars
Bertrand Grospellier is the fourth major name to leave Team PokerStars this year.
French Triple Crown winner Bertrand 'ElkY' Grospellier is the latest high profile name who has not renewed his sponsorship deal with PokerStars. PokerFuse reported over the weekend he was no longer showing on the Team PokerStars homepage and later he confirmed the depature on Twitter:
— ElkY (@elkypoker) January 27, 2018
Grospellier is the fourth major name to leave Team PokerStars already this year (Contract negotiations tend to be in January for their sponsored players). Felipe Ramos, Jason Mercier and Vanessa Selbst all also left the team this year.
While sponsored poker professionals clearly are not as big a part of the PokerStars marketing strategy in 2018, once again this is in stark contrast to partypoker, who last week announced the signing of former PokerStars Pro Isaac Haxton.
ElkY's departure is still something of a surprise because as an ambassador he ticked a lot of boxes. He is the biggest name in French poker and tops their all time money list by a big margin. He is a Triple Crown Winner with EPT, WPT and WSOP titles, multiple High Roller titles, WCOOP and SCOOP bracelets and was the first ever SuperNova and SuperNova Elite. He is also the first eSports crossover star, a former StarCraft Champion he is now an accomplished Hearthstone player.
Do you think sponsoring professional poker players is a good use of poker room marketing money? Let us know in the comments:
