ESPN And Harrah's WSOP Extend Deal To 2018

The presenters of the WSOP, Harrah’s Interactive Entertainment, have been airing the event on ESPN since 2003, and have now agreed to keep the tournament on the ESPN television network for another 7 years. The arrangement was due to expire in 2010 but will now be extended to 2018 and underscores ESPN’s objective of bringing high quality poker programmes to its target audience.
Although ESPN has seen the 2009 WSOP viewer figures drop off by 8%, poker still attracts over 82 million fans to the network each year, and Doug White, a director at ESPN said: “We are very excited to continue our relationship with Harrah’s to deliver the largest, richest, and most prestigious gaming event in the world to fans across a variety of our platforms. Poker continues to be a solid ratings performer for us and allows us to continue offering diverse programming to our viewers.”
ESPN have been involved and instrumental in the modern day poker boom having presented the 2003 WSOP Main Event which saw the unknown Chris Moneymaker winning a $40 online satellite and then going on to beat a field of 839 players to lift the title of WSOP Champion and pick up a cheque for  $2.5 million.
Moneymaker’s story acted as a catalyst and inspiration for budding poker players around the world and ESPN was the first to offer extended coverage of the event in the form of six hour long episodes. ESPN also added their own unique style to the coverage which included using amiable journalists such as Lon McEachern and Norman Chad to present the personal stories behind some of the faces in the tournaments. They thus helped in raising the profiles of the  players involved in the game and encouraged the many sponsorship deals and endorsements which pursued.
McEachern said:“It’s a role where I was in the right place at the right time. At the time (in 2003), I just looked at it as just another assignment. I pin it all on Moneymaker — all of the factors that went into that were the seed that started the poker boom. We just had to show what happened.”
The new deal with Harrah’s allows ESPN to show at least 32 hours of WSOP coverage each year and although coverage started this Tuesday, November 10th will see the much anticipated Main Event final table action being shown just hours after it happen in real time.