WSOP Scraps November Nine Format

The World Series of Poker has signed a new four-year broadcast and digital agreement that will provide start-to-finish coverage of the July event and ditch the November Nine format that had final table players competing months after the main tournament.

Poker Central on Monday said it has acquired the global television and digital media rights to the annual poker event staged at the Rio. Poker Central also announced that it has reached an agreement with ESPN to broadcast the event from the first day of the tournament July 8 to the conclusion of the final table July 22. Due to regulatory restrictions, the tournament can’t technically be broadcast live, but it’s tape-delayed by 30 minutes.

https://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/wsop-signs-new-4-year-deal-scraps-november-nine-format/

 

Much better this way.

 

Great now I can do it all in one trip to LV

 

This is great news! I think the magic will return a bit more to the WSOP now and more buzz will be generated for future summers.

 

Obviously the ratings for the November format have tanked. This change should be better for the players, especially the leaders who are on a roll. I always thought the delay would be a big cooler for me if I was remaining. Also it eliminates all of the additional "coaching" etc. from others looking to leech into some prize money.

 

"I always thought the delay would be a big cooler for me if I was remaining."

To be fair, you can't really get past 6,500+ players without being on a heater. If one person gets cooled by the delay, they all do.

In any case, ratings for poker are down in every sense. The final table buzz isn't there like it used to be, particularly when we often have final tables that casual fans don't recognize a single name from. When I was watching the ESPN WSOP events years ago, they were always delayed by what, 6-8 weeks? I think the way they should have delayed the main event final table was to go by the television schedule. They aired 1-hour episodes every Tuesday summarizing 1 event. They should have just done that for 8 weeks, beginning around July 15th, and then in the 9th week air the main event final table, semi-live (15 or 30 minute delay), to keep momentum going, with a two-hour truncated summary show releasing a week or two later. They could have even filled an empty Tuesday in between with a summary show of the entire WSOP, highlighting the player of the year race, crazy bad beats, player profiles, etc.

The final table players would have had a bit less than 2 months of a break in that sense but it's a lot better than 5-6 months, and I think it would have made for much better TV ratings than the November Nine format ever did.

 

I think it's a good change. Imagine any sports league where you had this amazing energy, focus and buzz throughout the playoffs and then.......... nothing............. for several months. All the momentum would be gone.

As a side note, I really hope ESPN doesn't make this season the Will Kasouf show. Enough with the guy.

 

Oh, you mean like the NBA?

 

I always thought it was silly. The game changes up pretty big when they get 4 months off to study their opponents, get more focused coaching, and generally lose the groove they were in to get to that point. I am glad to see this one go. Whoever dreamt up this November Nine idea needs a kick in the crotch - clearly not a poker player.

For the players, it adds one more day to what was already 7 days I believe, so basically 8 days without breaks, depending on which day 1 they entered. I guess if you're doing 7 days what's 8, you're already in marathon mode. Better than taking 4 months off right.