The company had been considering launching a second tour to focus on North America, but decided instead to combine it into one comprehensive tour.
The company was already negotiating with various locations across Puerto Rico, Panama, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Peru and the Dominican Republic. As we combine and expand our tour, we are currently looking for additional visits in the United States and Canada. With this expansion, the PTA will be one of the world's largest poker tours, which will attract many top-notch poker professionals.
Vega plans to air the tournament in North and South America, with himself as executive producer, to provide more stringent control over the tournament with ads sold during PTA time.
"Unlike many poker programs on television, we're not trying to sell the rights to programmers," Herron noted. "[We're] going to own the program and we're going to sign up for the time frame that's needed to run the hour-long show. This will allow the company to benefit from advertising, sponsorship, reruns of programs, and the tournament itself."
The PTA plans to increase the number to six in the following year, with five planned stops in 2009. This date and location have not yet been confirmed, but it is currently being announced:
Ecuador's Guayaquil (February 21-27)
San Jose, Costa Rica (April 10-17)
Vancouver, British Columbia (June 5-12)
Cartagena, Colombia (August 15 to 21)
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (October 24–30)
The tour also includes the Tournament of Champions, which concludes the season, but details of the date or location of the event have not yet been released. All events are invitation-only and athletes from around the world can win seats online and through live regional satellite tournaments.