Caesars Entertainment has chosen CBS Sports Network as an official TV partner for the WSOP Main Event.
Poker Is Back on TV with CBS Sports Deal
CBS Sports Network will be the exclusive partner for the World Series of Poker (WSOP) as part of a new deal with Caesars Entertainment, the company behind the most exciting poker live tournament in the west, and possibly the world.
As part of the multi-year agreement, including PokerGO as the over-the-top platform, CBS Sports will air 15 hours of WSOP Main Event footage along with 36 hours of Gold Bracelet tourneys this season. The coverage will be broadcast across the CBS Sports Network as well as on the Paramount+ and ViacomCBS platforms. The new partnership coincides with the return of in-person events.
The partnership is historic in every sense of the word as it boosts awareness of poker, which has been recovering following the pandemic and brings back memories to the first time when CBS Sports first broadcast WSOP Main Event in the 1970s.
TV coverage for poker has ebbed and flowed throughout the years, but WSOP executive director Ty Stewart is keen on pushing poker through as much media as possible. “CBS Sports has long been a p lodislot ioneer in covering a broad range of championship sports,” he explained.
Bringing Poker Back in Style
Stewart is also expecting CBS Sports’ extensive and growing coverage to benefit WSOP as well and bring fresh recruits to the poker tables. Live and online poker is expanding in places such as Pennsylvania and Michigan, but the United States still lacks a strong shared liquidity program across regulated poker jurisdictions.
CBS Sports executive VP of programming Dan Weinberg noted that the network has already had a successful experience with PokerGO and CBS is ready to take on a more ambitious relationship with “the highest-profile and richest event in competitive tournament poker,” nodding at the WSOP Main Event.
WSOP Main Event is back after a choppy 2020 which saw the Main Event postponed and then moved to an online schedule. After the event completed, WSOP released a surprise statement that what was considered Main Event was in fact just an online tournament, and then went on to host an in-person event.
Things are once again looking up for poker and if anything, WSOP will keep the online format and run it parallel with the in-person events.
