Even though ESPN experienced its best ratings last year with the WSOP lineup they presented, ESPN has decided to change the way they are presenting the WSOP this year. The major change is that they have chosen to remove 6 of the 7 bracelet events they did last year, and replace them with the brand new $40k buy-in event (for the 40th anniversary) plus two non-bracelet tournaments.
The two non-bracelet events this year will be the Ante Up for Africa charity tournament that is heavily endorsed by actor Don Cheadle, and the WSOP Champions Invitational. The WSOP Main Event will keep its current 25 episode format with a preview episode before the final table begins in early November. The $50k HORSE tourney is gone largely due to the drunken antics of Scotty Nguyen from last year.
With the addition of these two tourneys, and the removal of the other 6 bracelet tournaments, I definitely think that ESPN isn’t going to rely on the strength of poker alone to draw an audience. Instead, they are opting to go for a more general audience with their running of the Africa tourney and the WSOP champs event. And both of these tournaments could definitely bring in more viewers than the average bracelet tourney just because of the star power involved.
However, it’s still a wonder why ESPN would decide to change things at this point since they had their best run yet with the World Series of Poker. Maybe after last year’s success more people got involved and this led to the numerous changes. Whatever the case is, I hope that the WSOP continues its run of success and keeps attracting more and more viewers to the table.