Via:PokerNewsDaily.com
Recently, Bodog officials announced the launch of the Bodog Network, which will begin accepting non-Bodog domain names next year. At its head is Patrik Selin, a former executive of the Ongame Network. Selin sat down with Poker News Daily to review the new venture.
Poker News Daily: Talk about the idea of developing the Bodog Network. How did it originate?
Selin: The three existing Bodog brand licensees have a respectable level of liquidity, but as I looked around the market, I felt that I could do something new by combining their existing liquidity and strong brands with my experience in the network space. We have a number of new approaches to database protection and rakeback that I believe can help reshape the poker network model, but attempting to launch this from scratch with no liquidity under a new brand would have been quite difficult. I don’t think Bodog was looking to do this, but I assembled a team and the business plan and made the proposal to Calvin Ayre and BodogBrand.
Once the general deal regarding licensing the brand was agreed to in principle, I needed to approach the three brand licensees to get a contractual commitment from each in order to ensure that the liquidity base would be there out of the gate. Then, I had all of the pieces I needed. The strength of the brand was obvious to me, but I felt that if I could secure the rights to use the brand, while also securing commitments from the existing brand licensees, I could take what I’ve learned in the market to turn what was, in effect, a brand-licensee-only network into something that could be made available to the global marketplace. It was a long negotiation and didn’t happen overnight, but I am extremely excited to have been able to put this together. We’re going to do something great here.
PND: Prior to the Network, were the player bases of the individual Bodog licensees separated? Or how does the Network change the status quo?
Selin: From a legal perspective, the Network changes the status quo in the sense that I have now acquired the source to the proprietary Bodog poker product. However, while all three brand licensees naturally maintain and protect their own customer databases, the liquidity has always been shared, so in that sense there is no immediate impact on the player bases. This is only the short-term situation – the enhancements to the product and non-Bodog-branded operators in 2010 will dramatically increase liquidity and we expect our unique approach to the rakeback challenge to be game-changing.
PND: What criteria will you have for future non-Bodog licensees?Read Full Story
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