When Dara O'Kearney and David Lappin announced that their podcast The Chip Race had aired its final episode under the Unibet Poker banner, many in the community were saddened at the prospect of losing yet another long-serving source for poker news, interviews, and opinions.
Thankfully, The Chip Race has found a new home as they recently partnered with WPT Global and fans of the show can now rest easy with the promise of more of the same top-notch content coming their way.
PokerOrg's Craig Tapscott spoke with O'Kearney and Lappin in the wake of the exciting news.
'Money is obviously not the only consideration'
Tell us about the journey to find a new sponsor and how you ended up with WPT Global.
O'Kearney: Basically, we knew a couple months ago that we were going to be finished with Unibet – which was good, it was good that they told us that far out so that we could start talking to other people. We talked to a bunch of people at different sites, but I think for both of us WPT Global was the clear front runner.
I think once we started serious talks with them, we were fairly sure it was going to be them – because money is obviously not the only consideration. The show has always depended on the sponsor taking a light touch and allowing us to do our own thing.
Lappin: I think, first and foremost, what really impressed us with WPT Global was how keen they were. We were sort of part of the furniture at Unibet and it was sad to go. We knew where we stood with them. We knew we could make the show we wanted with them and we were really keen to have that continue as best we could.
As soon as we told WPT Global that we were interested, I think it was the second meeting, they had a contract ready three days later. They just didn't want us to slip away and go to somebody else. Dara and I were both like, 'These guys want us and if we go somewhere we're wanted they know what they're buying. They know the product.' That was very heartening.
David, you're known for speaking for your mind, especially in your columns. What are your plans in that regard? Are you going to continue to write?
Lappin: It's absolutely possible that WPT Global might like us to write some stuff for them over the next year and if they do we'd obviously be more than keen to do that. We are allowed to maintain both our relationships with independent commentating gigs or indeed the writing.
They [WPT Global] understand that having these other partnerships, whether it's a writing partnership or something else, that it's all supplementary. It helps everybody when you have that. As long as, of course, you're not representing a rival brand.
I don't see any reason why Dara and I wouldn't publish. I think that will be business as usual for us.
'The king is dead, long live the king'
What does the future hold for The Chip Race with WPT Global?
Lappin: We have been sort of prepared for this. I know people might feel a little bit slow-rolled – or hopefully reverse slow-rolled because it's a good thing we're still on the air. We didn't know we were definitely signed until a couple of weeks ago and since then we obviously had to keep the secret.
We put out a great final episode for Unibet, it was a real reunion of their best and brightest. We tried to touch on every aspect of that company as a nice farewell to them. But also, you know; the king is dead, long live the king – we had to move on quickly and we've got a little bit ahead of ourselves with content for WPT. With Dara going away in a few weeks, we've had to batch a couple episodes. We've got some amazing episodes.
O'Kearney: Yeah, nothing major will change. We are going to do a little bit more as part of our new contract – we're going to put out one major piece of content every week for the year. The main thing with The Chip Race is and always has been the guests. I'm pretty sure we've had more unique guests than any other poker podcast – we try to pull people from everywhere. These are people who have very interesting stories to tell, but generally aren't sought out by the poker media.
That's going to be the challenge for us going forward – to keep finding those people.
Additional images courtesy of Danny Maxwell Photography/PokerStars/Rational Intellectual Holdings Ltd
