Poker isn’t dead

There’s always a media type somewhere that’s writing about “the death of poker” and that fact that the games popularity is bound to dip and now is the time, yada yada yada. Bucking that trend for the 115th time this year, the World Series of Poker broadcast on ESPN attracted the largest audience in two years. According to George McNeilly from ESPN, “The viewership and interest we’ve seen this season tells us that the World Series of Poker still has a very strong following”.

Viewer ratings for the Main Event this year were up 10% over with well over one million households watching the first broadcast of the show. This doesn’t even take into account the number that will watch the planned 8 reruns of the event. Better yet, the episode leading to the November 9 had a massive 44% increase from last year. Harrah’s and ESPN like to take all of the credit for this due to the new format this year but the sustained interest in Online Poker clearly has played a role as well.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that this years show had deep runs (and quite the display of idiocy) by Phil Hellmuth. Mike Matusow also went deep this year but viewers didn’t get to see any Matusow Meltdowns. There are arguments that the WSOP fields are too littered with unknowns but so long as the occasional pro makes it deep, the great ratings that ESPN is enjoying should continue. At the very least, we can be rest assured that the expanded coverage of the event will continue for the 2009 World Series of Poker.