A week from today marks the beginning of ESPN’s fall coverage of the 2016 World Series of Poker; within the past week, the “Worldwide Leader” released the complete schedule for the weekly broadcasts. Oh, how times have changed. Whereas a decade ago, we might have seen a number of preliminary events in addition to the $10,000 Main Event, now we are down to the WSOP Global Casino Championship and the Main Event. Somehow, though ESPN is getting sixteen episodes out of it and that is before the Main Event final table.
The coverage kicks off Tuesday, September 6th with the WSOP Global Casino Championship in two separate, one-hour episodes at 10:00pm and 11:00pm ET. The Championship is the culmination of the WSOP Circuit season. 100 players earn free seats into the event: the casino champion at Circuit stop and the Main Event winners of each stop, both in the United States and internationally, as well as the top points earners from the season who did not otherwise earn a free seat. Additionally, the top 100 players in the WSOP World rankings, based on gold bracelets events in 2014 and 2015, can buy-in to the tournament for $10,000.
The WSOP Main Event coverage begins less than a week later, on Sunday, September 11th and will continue each Sunday for the next six weeks after that. There will be two 90-minute episodes each night at 8:30pm ET and 11:00pm ET. There will also be one 10:30pm episode shoe-horned in on Monday, September 19th. The exact channel for the episodes varies, sometimes ESPN, sometimes ESPN2. Everything will also likely be streamed on WatchESPN/ESPN3.
This schedule is very interesting, considering the WSOP Main Event broadcast will be directly up against NBC Sunday Night Football and one might assume that there is a fair amount of overlap between football fans and poker fans.
The live coverage of the November Nine is scheduled for Sunday, October 30th at 8:30pm, Monday, October 31st at 8:00pm, and Tuesday, November 1st at 9:00pm. “Semi-live” is actually the more appropriate term, as the final table will be on a 30-minute tape delay, per Nevada Gaming Commission regulations. On the first night of the final table, play will go on until there are four players remaining; the broadcast will begin on ESPN and switch to ESPN2 at 11:00pm ET. The second day will be on ESPN2 and will continue until just two players remain. The final day of the November Nine will be shown on ESPN.
All hands of the final table will be broadcast with hole cards and commentary by the usual cast of characters: Lon McEachern, Norman Chad, Kara Scott, Antonio Esfandari, and Phil Laak. If it is like other years, expect guest commentators to pop in like perhaps Phil Hellmuth, Olivier Busquet, and Daniel Negreanu.
ESPN will also air a final table encore on Sunday, November 20th.
