Poker After Dark To Air 24 Unseen Episodes

Television show Poker After Dark (PAD) made its NBC debut on January 1st, 2007 but was cancelled on September 23rd, 2011, after its major sponsor Full Tilt Poker was targeted as part of the ‘Black Friday’ indictments.
Now, it looks like the popular poker show is set to make a return to the NBC Sports Network, after ‘Poker PROductions’ producer Mori Eskandani confirmed the news.
According to Eskandani, PAD is now expected to air starting March 5th, but with a few changes.
As mentioned, Full Tilt Poker was the show’s sponsor before the show was cancelled just days after Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara alleged the business “was not a legitimate poker company, but a global Ponzi scheme.” Consequently, this time around Poker After Dark will show no sponsors or branding.
In addition, the first few episodes are believed to be re-runs, but with 5 weeks of 24 unaired episodes planned, including four weeks of a cash game and one week of a $100k buy-in SNG. Talking about the un-aired episodes originally shot in 2010, Eskandani explained to pokernews:
“All the big names that you know from Patrik Antonius, Phil Ivey, Tom Dwan, Eli Elezra, David Oppenheim, Phil Hellmuth, Andy Bloch, Justin Smith, they’re all there, and Annette Obrestad — we’ve never seen her play cash game — but she’ll play the cash game.”
In the past, the Poker PROductions company has produced such quality shows as
ESPN’s coverage of the WSOP, NBC’s National Heads-Up Championship, GSN’s WSOP Europe (WSOPE) and High Stakes Poker. As to what the future may hold for Poker After Dark, Mori Eskandani commented:
“The cash games are getting high accolades from the community..but once it’s off the air, it could be off their mind. Now that it’s coming back, they can go back and revisit..I don’t want to speculate, but ..I feel like in a year or so, we’re going to see a whole bunch of shows coming back, and hopefully even better than before.”