According to a report by longtime poker industry veteran Nolan Dalla, PokerStars, now owned by Amaya Gaming, reportedly was floating the idea of buying the NFL’s New Orleans Saints in 2006. At the time, Dalla was PokerStars’ Director of Communications.

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Dalla reported in a recent blogthat following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, Tom Benson, majority owner of the Saints, was contemplating a sale of the team for $600 million. As Dalla narrated, the chances of PokerStars actually being able to buy the Saints were rather slim. However, the publicity associated with a potential purchase could have gone a long way.

Dalla wrote, “When I first heard the Saints were for sale, I discussed the prospect of PokerStars tendering an offer to buy the team with some of my closest colleagues within the company. This wasn’t about business… It was about generating publicity (at no cost). We all knew there was no way the gambling-skittish National Football League would ever approve such a deal to an offshore poker site. That didn’t matter. What we were after was fanfare and the bonanza of legitimacy this kind of financial offering would bring to the company.”

PokerStars was allegedly planning a joint press release and offer to Benson, which Dalla (pictured) said could be worth eight-figures in publicity: “PokerStars was about to be playing in the real major leagues of sports and business and would be destined to get a whole lot of attention once the announcement went public.”

Following Katrina and the Saints playing games away from New Orleans in Baton Rouge and San Antonio, word on the street was that the team was considering a permanent move to San Antonio, Toronto, or Los Angeles rather than return to the Louisiana Superdome, which had served as a refugee camp following the natural disaster.

As such, PokerStars’ proposal to Benson, according to Dalla, included a pledge to keep the team in New Orleans. As Dalla put it, “If all this sounds manipulative, it wasn’t. It was very real. I mean, a cash offer would actually be on the table for the taking. Who knows, with some creative organization and structuring, anything might happen.”

As grand of a plan as Dalla’s was, it never came to fruition, as PokerStars founder Isai Scheinberg (pictured) decided to pass on the deal. Dalla explained, “Perhaps Isai decided that while he indeed wanted publicity and exposure for the site, he didn’t really want that much of it. Remaining in the shadows while minting a fortune does seem like the far safer play. There was always the risk that with more scrutiny aimed our direction, we might become targets.”

PokerStars was one of four sites exiled from the US market on Black Friday in 2011, a half-decade after the Saints proposal was considered. Last month, the site, along with Full Tilt Poker, was sold to Amaya Gaming to create the largest publicly traded gaming company in the world. Meanwhile, the New Orleans Saints defeated the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl.

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