{"id":547081,"date":"2026-03-26T20:44:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/547081\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T20:44:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:44:12","slug":"world-series-of-poker-returning-to-espn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/547081\/","title":{"rendered":"World Series of Poker returning to ESPN"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>If you weren\u2019t around during the mid-2000s, it\u2019s hard to describe what the poker boom was like in sports and society. It was like the 6-7 meme, but when talking about playing cards.<\/p>\n<p>Thanks to ESPN\u2019s broadcast of the 2003 World Series of Poker main event, the game of No Limit Texas Hold \u2018Em experienced an explosion in popularity. What started as an event in a back room at Binion\u2019s in Las Vegas became a global phenomenon. ESPN had broadcast several WSOP main events going back as far as 1987, but the 2003 event was a landmark one because they covered the entire tournament and told captivating stories. There were living legends like Doyle Brunson, who literally wrote the book on the game, firebrands like Phil Hellmuth, and charismatic figures like Sammy Farha. But it was the Cinderella victory of Chris Moneymaker led millions of people to believe they could be the next person to strike it rich.<\/p>\n<p>But <a href=\"https:\/\/awfulannouncing.com\/espn\/poker-boom-20-years-later-chris-moneymaker.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">almost as soon as the poker boom hit<\/a>, the bottom fell out. After poker got tons of airtime on ESPN, NBC, and other mainstream networks, the online poker ban sent the game largely back to the margins in the American sports landscape. Furthermore, a new winner of the WSOP every year with huge fields made it difficult for fans to connect with the best players who often weren\u2019t in serious contention.<\/p>\n<p>However, the World Series of Poker is ready to make a comeback to the big stage.<\/p>\n<p>For the first time since 2021, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsop.com\/about\/world-series-of-poker\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ESPN will televise the main event of the WSOP this summer<\/a>. And their coverage plans are reminiscent of what made it a hit so long ago.<\/p>\n<p>ESPN will air 100 hours of programming from the WSOP beginning July 2 on the ESPN app. ESPN television coverage will feature the storytelling components that helped to contribute to the poker boom so long ago. In addition, the network will air live main event final table coverage from August 3-5 at 9 p.m. ET on its linear networks.<\/p>\n<p>The good news for ESPN is they will have a star to sell in defending main event champion Michael \u201cThe Grinder\u201d Mizrachi. He has been a television staple for years as one of the top poker pros in the game and won not only the main event but the prestigious Players Championship at last year\u2019s event for the fourth time. Thanks to his tournament victories, he earned immediate induction into the Poker Hall of Fame. If Mizrachi can make another deep run this year, it will give ESPN a huge boost in coverage. But if the network goes all-in like they did 20 years ago, they just might be able to make some new stars too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you weren\u2019t around during the mid-2000s, it\u2019s hard to describe what the poker boom was like in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":547082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[399,398,396,397,140307,99,243854],"class_list":["post-547081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-football","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-poker","tag-sports","tag-world-series-of-poker"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=547081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/547081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/547082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=547081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=547081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=547081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}