WSOP’s Comeback on ESPN Had a Rough Start

First WSOP Numbers Weren’t Strong on ESPN

According to statistics from Programming Insider, the first two episodes of the WSOP — referred to simply as “Poker” in this chart from July 21st, 2026 — didn’t perform great in terms of viewership.

The first episode was watched by 176,000 viewers and ranked 105th among programs airing at the same time on other channels, while the second episode was slightly more successful, attracting 186,000 viewers and ranking 95th.

The numbers may seem huge considering paywall, since people just can’t watch the WSOP on ESPN without a subscription. However, they are still relatively low when compared to ESPNs total audience, estimated at over $10M Americans, and the number of viewers for other sports broadcasts. It’s also important to note that the WSOP was not shown on ESPN’s main channel, but rather on a mix of ESPN2 and ESPN+.

Note that ESPN doesn’t measure viewership numbers down to the individual — those hundreds of thousands are actually averages based on collecting metrics from a sample of viewers.

There are at least five reasons we found while analyzing why another long-awaited poker boom isn’t happening after WSOP returned to television — and each of them demands proper explanation.

WSOP Has Been off ESPN for Too Long

The WSOP hasn’t aired on ESPN since 2017. It first partially migrated to YouTube and PokerGO, where videos were available both for free and with a subscription, and then moved to the CBS Sports Network, where it wasn’t widely watched.

Having been on ESPN for most of its lifetime, the loss of the WSOP partnership for nine full years meant that ESPN viewers had virtually forgotten about the World Series of Poker as a show on their favorite channel.

This means that an entire generation of potential viewers and players has grown up without being familiar with the concept of poker as a sport.

ESPN Appears to Have Forgotten to Advertise the WSOP on Social Media

Despite a couple of articles on ESPN’s website and massive promotion of the series streams through WSOP social media accounts, the network itself appears to have decided not to bother with active advertising of the series.

Its main X/Twitter account has 58.5M followers, and its announcements and clips receive hundreds of thousands and even millions of views — but since 2017, the WSOP hasn’t been mentioned there.

ESPN’s official Instagram account has 28.5M followers — and it’s also about everyone and everything but the WSOP.

The situation is similar with all other social media pages — apparently, the network’s ​​interest in the WSOP is so low that it does not consider it necessary to advertise. As a result, many potential viewers didn’t even know the WSOP would be broadcast on ESPN, or when or how to watch it.

Ken Douglas expressed our collective impression on X:

Finding How to Watch the WSOP is a Real Quest

The fact that WSOP content is scattered across multiple platforms also isn’t helping the situation. The live stream is on ESPN+ and highlights are partly there — but they are also on ESPN and ESPN2.

So, even poker players can’t find it, let alone casual viewers.

Since Derek Kwan described this situation in great detail on X, we’re sharing his words with you, so you can for understand the problem in full:

People Are Waiting for the Main Event Final Table

While many people enjoy the charm of TV broadcasts, not everyone is willing to spend their time watching the Main Event’s “intermediate” days. Especially, when ESPN and WSOP decided to firstly show highlights from Day 6, 7 and 8 — numbers saying nothing to non-poker folks in comparison to the Final Table.

So, it’s only logical that the regular WSOP play days are far less interesting for people — unless there’s some incredible event that goes viral online. In general, people aren’t particularly willing to pay to watch the path to the final table of some random players who didn’t make it — especially when the final table lineup is already known, available for free.

A Strange Choice of Days to Show

The filming crew walked all over the WSOP during each and every Main Event’s play days. However, for some reason ESPN and WSOP decided to show coverage starting from Day 6-8. Many players considered this a big mistake from ESPN/WSOP — as Jon Pardy described it:

Moreover: WSOP сonfused viewers with the following coverage even more by announcing Day 3 and 4 as a part of Episodes 3 and 4 with a clarification from Norman Chad that they are actually featuring Days 6, 7 and 8 again but with a brief look back at the Day 4 money bubble.

Why is the daily order so strange, how should people adjust their plans if they want to see how they perform on a given day, and should they trust WSOP announcements after this — no one has answered these questions yet.

In the End, the Poker Community Is Divided in Opinions

In general, poker players reacted quite positively to the ESPN episodes, praising the nostalgic commentary from Lon McEachern and Norman Chad, the high-quality production, and the excellent selection of heroes and hands.

However, a fair share of critique was voiced as well. Not every player found “production nonsense” as interesting as they hoped to be.

They also noted that ESPN’s 2026 format is so outdated that each episode is just a retelling of already old news. Doug Petersen summed it up well: