ESPN's 2009 World Series of Poker tv schedule was released earlier this week, and I've gotta say I was extremely disappointed. ESPN has essentially decided to abandon broadcasting any non-hold em events. In fact they will really only be broadcasting 4 events, two of which are an invitational and a charity tournament. The other two being the $40k Special NL Hold Em event commemorating the 40th anniversary of the WSOP and the other being the Main Event.This just seems silly to me. I mean, not broadcasting such prestigious events that are Star filled like the $50k H.O.R.S.E. just doesn't make any sense. I guess ESPN doesn't want to deal with explaining to the casual fan more complex games like 7 card stud high low. But even throwing in some Pot Limit Omaha tourneys in there would have sufficed.
Instead they've decided to devote eight episodes to Day 1 of the Main Event. Eight episodes! That's insane! Most feature tables on Day 1 consist of maybe one well known Pro and a bunch of unknowns. Doesn't really make for great poker.
Way to really drop the ball on this one ESPN.
Here's the full tv schedule:
July 28 8:00 PM ET Special 40th Annual $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 1
July 28 9:00 PM ET Special 40th Annual $40,000 No Limit Hold’em 2
August 4 8:00 PM ET WSOP Champions Invitational 3
August 4 9:00 PM ET WSOP Champions Invitational 4
August 11 8:00 PM ET Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Event 5
August 11 9:00 PM ET Ante Up For Africa Celebrity-Charity Event 6
August 18 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1A 7
August 18 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1A 8
August 25 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1B 9
August 25 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1B 10
September 1 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1C 11
September 1 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1C 12
September 8 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1D 13
September 8 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 1D 14
September 15 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2A 15
September 15 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2A 16
September 22 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2B 17
September 22 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 2B 18
September 29 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 3 19
September 29 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 3 20
October 6 8:00 PM ET Main Event Day 4 21
October 6 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 4 22
October 13 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 5 23
October 13 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 5 24
October 20 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 6 25
October 20 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 6 26
October 27 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 7 27
October 27 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 7 28
November 3 9:00 PM ET Main Event Day 8 29
November 3 10:00 PM ET Main Event Day 8 3
November 10 8:00PM ET Final Table Preview Show
November 10 9-11:00 PM ET Main Event Final Table 31
