For those of us not jumping on a plane to Las Vegas to celebrate the 50th World Series of Poker (WSOP), the televised coverage of the event will have to do.
Luckily Poker Central’s PokerGO along with ESPN have released their broadcast schedules announcing blanket coverage of the Main Event between July 3 and July 16, 2019. This means that the Main Event and Final Table will be broadcast in its entirety—ensuring viewers won’t miss a beat.
“Significant video coverage is one of our key cornerstones,” said Ty Stewart, Executive Director of the World Series of Poker. “We’re grateful to Poker Central and ESPN for continuing to expand the reach of WSOP to today’s platforms and fueling the interest of tomorrow’s champions.”
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In addition to 40 hours of live WSOP coverage, ESPN will also be producing an additional 90 hours of unique episodes to compliment the standard programming. PokerGO will also be streaming a whole host of WSOP bracelet events—although that schedule has yet to be released.
“ESPN’s established relationship with the World Series of Poker and Poker Central always brings our audience the top content from this event,” said Rob Temple, Senior Vice President of Programming and Acquisitions at ESPN. “It is a consistent hit for ESPN and we take pride in the extensive broadcast coverage we provide the fans from this exciting, fan-favorite tournament.”
The 2019 coverage marks the third year running that Poker Central and ESPN have delivered coverage of the WSOP Main Event, with PokerGO broadcasting exclusive content that is not available on ESPN.
“For the third straight year, Poker Central and ESPN will deliver expansive coverage of the WSOP Main Event to a continually growing audience across multiple platforms,” said JR McCabe, Chief Digital Officer of Poker Central. “We again look forward to bringing poker’s pinnacle event to fans around the world.”
In addition to the main WSOP schedule of events, online bracelet events will also be running.
“I think we’ll have some good news soon for players looking to play online bracelet events this summer at the World Series of Poker,” Vice President of Corporate Communications for Caesars Interactive Entertainment and the World Series of Poker, Seth Palansky, told pokerfuse last week.
“There will be an increased number of online events over last year,” Palansky added, despite there not being any concrete evidence of what the online events will look like and when they will run.
This could be in part thanks to the fly in the ointment of the Department of Justice’s reversal of the Wire Act. This reversal may mean only players in Nevada will be able to play in the online events—as it requires all online gaming to be kept within state lines.
WSOP.com operates on the All American Poker Network (AAPN)—the only interstate online poker network in the US.
It allows players in Nevada, Delaware and New Jersey to sit at the same tables and compete in cash games and tournaments. Last year New Jersey took the online WSOP player base from 4 million people to more than 13 million, an event that WSOP.com’s Head of Online Poker Bill Rini deemed “a monumental day for online poker in the United States.”
The WSOP Main Event schedule on ESPN and ESPN2 is outlined below.
Date | Time | Network | Event |
July 3 | 8:30pm to 2:00am ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 1A |
July 4 | 9:00pm to 11:00pm ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 1B |
July 5 | 8:00pm to 12:30am ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 1C |
July 6 | 6:00pm to 10:30pm ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 2AB |
July 7 | 2:30pm to 6:00pm ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 2C |
July 8 | 10:00pm to 2:00am ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 3 |
July 9 | 7:00pm to 11:00pm ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 4 |
July 10 | 8:00pm to 11:00pm ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 5 |
July 11 | 12:30am to 2:00am ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 6 |
July 12 | 9:00pm to 11:00pm ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 7 |
July 12 | 11:00pm to 2:00am ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 7-Play to Final Table |
July 14 | 10:00pm to TBD ET | ESPN2 | WSOP ME Day 8-Nine to Six Players |
July 15 | 10:00pm to TBD ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 9-Six to Three Players |
July 16 | 9:00pm to TBD ET | ESPN | WSOP ME Day 10-Three Players to Winner |
As with all live events, the schedule is subject to change. All streams will be broadcast on a 30 minute delay with the hole cards shown in accordance to gaming regulations.
The complete PokerGO streaming schedule for the WSOP is still to be announced.