WSOP Broadcasts

Introduction

The broadcasts of the WSOP are split into two distinct eras - the early years and the modern years. The early years are defined by a lack of production value and were not much fun to watch. Many of the older broadcasts presented merely an overview or recap of the tournaments as opposed to broadcasting the actual events with play-by-play analysis and commentary. Unlike today's coverage, there were no interviews or profiles on the players.

Despite this, after the poker boom took off around 2002, many poker players were interested in watching the hard-to-find broadcasts from the older years. Some of them bought some old VHS tapes or DVD-rips off EBay (if they couldn't find torrents). Many of them were interested in getting a look at some of the legendary players like Stu Ungar in action. Nowadays, some of these older broadcasts are shown on ESPN Classic.

The modern era is defined by a higher production value, including player profiles and interviews, and expanded coverage. The biggest change, by far, was the introduction of the hold card cam, which allowed viewers to play along with the hand, instead of having the hand (and all the relevant strategy) revealed at once at the end.

The Early Years (1970s–1990s)

The first filming of the World Series of Poker was a special produced by Binion's Horseshoe in 1973 and narrated by Jimmy "The Greek" Snyder. CBS then covered the World Series for two years in the late 1970s. In the first half of the 1980s, the event coverage went back to being special broadcasts. In the late 1980s, ESPN took over the broadcasting of the WSOP and continued to coverage it until 1999 when The Discovery Channel took over until 2001.

The Modern Years (2000s)

ESPN began covering the WSOP again in 2002. This was the first year of "modern" poker broadcasting. Besides their expanded coverage of the final table broadcast, the 2002 WSOP was the first to use hole card cameras. In 2003, with the game of poker slowly becoming more popular, ESPN expanded coverage by covering the entire tournament and adding a "Featured Table", which was a table where a particularly popular player, or previous winner, was sitting at.

Around this time, ESPN's coverage now resembled the coverage of typical sports events, with lighter segments (called "The Nuts"), interviews, and an emphasis on the personalities of some of the popular players. In 2006, ESPN expanded coverage to new levels, including providing the entire final table of the 2006 Main Event via pay-per-view airing. In 2008, ESPN changed the Main Event format by creating a delay of the final table. In 2009, continued with this format. The 2011 WSOP featured "nearly live" coverage, with broadcasts being delayed by much smaller amounts of time. Caesars Entertainment, via their web site WSOP.com, streamed final-table coverage of all bracelet events on a 5-minute delay, although without pocket cams.

List of WSOP broadcasters

Year	Channel	Broadcasters
2012	ESPN	Lon McEachern, Norman Chad and Kara Scott
2011	ESPN	Lon McEachern, Norman Chad and Kara Scott
2011	ESPN3	Lon McEachern, David Tuchman, Antonio Esfandiari, Norman Chad, Phil Hellmuth, Olivier Busquet, Johnny Chan, Vanessa Rousso
2010	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2010	ESPN3	James Hartigan and Adam Schoenfeld, Phil Hellmuth, Gavin Griffin, Bernard Lee, Jonathan Aguiar, Joseph Cheong
2009	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2008	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2007	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad; Phil Gordon & Ali Nejad in Main Event Pay-per-view
2006	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad; Phil Gordon & Ali Nejad in Main Event Pay-per-view
2005	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2004	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2003	ESPN	Lon McEachern & Norman Chad
2002	ESPN	Lon McEachern and Gabe Kaplan
2001	The Discovery Channel
2000	The Discovery Channel
1999	The Discovery Channel
1998	ESPN	Vince Van Patten and Jim Albrecht
1997	ESPN	Gabe Kaplan and Jim Albrecht
1996		Was not televised
1995	ESPN	Dick Van Patten and Jim Albrecht
1994	ESPN	Dick Van Patten and Jim Albrecht
1994	ESPN	Dick Van Patten and Jim Albrecht
1992	ESPN	Chris Marlowe
1991	ESPN	Chris Marlowe
1990	ESPN	Chris Marlowe
1989	ESPN	Chris Marlowe
1988	ESPN	Chris Marlowe
1987	special	Ted Robinson
1983	special	Curt Gowdy and Bobby Baldwin
1981	special	Curt Gowdy
1979	CBS	Frank Glieber and Jimmy Snyder
1978	CBS	Brent Musburger and Jimmy Snyder
1973	special	Jimmy Snyder