The WSOP & ESPN Connection
Television and the WSOP have had quite a history together. Actually, that should be changed to say that the WSOP and ESPN have quite a history together!
The tournament got a pretty short shrift in its early days. CBS would get Jimmy the Greek to narrate a cut together documentary of sorts and it would make the air as a special. This kind of coverage continued off and on through the years until that sports channel upstart, ESPN, took an interest in the game.
ESPN jumped in and from the late 1980s started providing coverage. Those poker addicts amongst us remember those days well, because if you blinked you missed the shows. The first broadcasts were taped delayed hour-long shows that showed only the final. Celebrity announcers like Dick or Chris Van Patten along with the tournament director were talking from the casino floor, and there was no fun stuff like pre-taped player profiles or in-depth analysis. ESPN was making great strides in football and other mainstream sports areas, but poker was lagging behind.
For a couple of years, 2000-2002, The Discovery Channel actually took over broadcasting the final, but it appeared as a delayed taped show and the actual play was interspersed with player interviews and chit chat. Shall we say a bit dull?
When ESPN took it back over in 2003, it was obviously to capitalize on the poker boom. No short shrift this time! Graphics, profiles and an extended two-hour broadcast awaited poker fans.
Since then, they keep extending coverage of tournaments and ramping up the glitz of the both the preliminaries and the final tournament. With worldwide distribution, I think it is easy to give ESPN part of the credit for the continuing poker craze. They recognized the popularity of the game and seized upon the opportunity to gain more viewers. Now besides a lot of tournament coverage and poker shows, they even re-broadcast finals from over the years in their classics series.
Recently, WSOP and ESPN announced that their contracts would extend to 2010 so it means ESPN will expand coverage even more.
This year beginning on July 18th there will be 32 hours of coverage, or if you want to opt in for the $24.95 live action plan, you can. Sign up and watch live via either your TV. or your computer.
Television and poker have come a long way!!!!!
My husband grumbles every time he sees poker on ESPN because he says it’s not a sport, so it shouldn’t be on the channel. I seem to remember George Carlin doing a comedy routine years ago that made fun of ESPN for the bizarre sports they would show late at night, so I always remember that when my husband starts complaining about it.
Even with it no longer receiving the short shift of coverage, I cannot bring myself to watch poker on tv. It seems like whenever I flip through the channels, one of the ESPN’s has some poker tournament on…yet, I rarely pause there to watch it. I’d much rather be playing it! It’s still good that it is extremely easy to catch poker on tv these days, for those interested.
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