Anheuser-Busch Antes Up Sponsorship Fee

LOS ANGELES To promote its Michelob AmberBock brand, Anheuser-Busch has become the official beer sponsor of the 2005 World Poker Tour, according to the cable program.

One of the Travel Channel’s highest-rated shows, the World Poker Tour helped the card game become a spectator sport, said Audrey Kania, executive vice president of WPT in West Hollywood, Calif. “Our objective is to reveal the poker world as it really is—contemporary and intelligent,” she said. The series of Texas Hold ‘Em games are shot and edited to be dramatic and strategically riveting, “so viewers feel engaged and as if they’re making the decisions,” she said.

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