The Sundance Film Festival has long attracted exciting rumors. "U2 is playing a gig on Main Street!" (False.) "P. Diddy is doing a private concert!" (Nope.) But this year's doozy, at least so far, may have been the hype surrounding the Celerity Poker Challenge, a celebrity poker tournament held Wednesday at Harry O's nightclub in Park City.
The event was sponsored by Celerity Investments, a South Jordan real-estate investment firm with more than $38 million in property holdings. Celerity is promoting several Sundance events as a way of launching its entertainment-production division on a national stage.
Until Wednesday morning, organizers were telling people that their "confirmed" contestants included some very big names: Matt Damon, George Clooney and NBA greats Charles Barkley and Michael Jordan. But when the event finally got underway about 2:30 p.m., those A-listers were nowhere to be found. Instead of Jason Bourne, Danny Ocean and the greatest basketball player of all time, spectators were treated to Miss USA Rachel Smith, Daniel Baldwin (maybe the least-known Baldwin brother), ex-NBA player-turned-talk show host John Salley, Ultimate Fighting champ Matt Hughes and Kato Kaelin. Yes, O.J.'s Kato Kaelin. And those were the most famous names at the table.
So what happened to Damon, Clooney and Jordan?
"Those were names that were never confirmed," said Celerity Investments partner Wayne Aston. "A lot of those guys had scheduling conflicts."
Aston said Celerity will hold celebrity poker tournaments later in the year at such high-profile events as the Kentucky Derby and the ESPYs awards show. Bigger names are expected for those, he said.
"We've been building up. And now we're big enough to play on a national level," Aston said.
Meanwhile, Baldwin, Salley and other C- and D-listers duked it out Wednesday before 100 or so Harry O's spectators. Winner will get $50,000 to donate to the charity of their choice. The tourney was filmed for possible future airing on Fox.
So who won? Don't know. But Miss USA, who didn't seem to know her poker rules, was not the first player eliminated. That was Salley.
-- Brandon Griggs