In the heydays of online poker, PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker were involved in an unprecedented arms race, signing up sponsored pros like there was no tomorrow. PokerStars Team Pro had over a hundred members at the time, still outdone by Full Tilt who had over double that.
As Black Friday hit and the duopoly came to an end, so did the competition of patching up as many poker players as possible. PokerStars said goodbye to a large part of their stable and today has 29 players on their roster.
In recent months, if PokerStars announced a new sponsor deal, it was a celebrity like Neymar or Ronaldo shining with the red spade on their chest.