Ratings Up for ESPN’s First WSOP 2010 Broadcast

The Grinder reacts to winning the $50,000 Poker Player Championship. (photo courtesy of WSOP)

ESPN just aired its first broadcast of the action from the 2010 World Series of Poker, and so far, the numbers are looking good. Viewership of the two hour broadcast of the $50,000 Poker Players Championship earned ratings 15% higher than ESPN’s first WSOP coverage from last year.

The final table of this year’s championship had no shortage of top pros and great poker action. Michael Mizrachi, his brother Robert, John Juanda, David Oppenheim, Vladimir Schmelev, David Baker, Michael Thuritz and Daniel Alaei all made the final nine as they vied for the Chip Reese Memorial Trophy and a top prize in excess of a million dollars.

The two hour broadcast, at 8pm and 9pm earned a combined 0.7 rating, up from last year’s 0.6 rating. That’s good news for poker and for the WSOP, especially considering ESPN only aired this year’s championship after a change in the tournament’s format. Up until the final table, the players compete in a rotation of eight different poker games: No Limit and Limit Hold’Em, Pot Limit Omaha, Limit Omaha Hi-Lo, Limit Stud, Stud Hi-Lo, Razz and Limit 2-7 Triple Draw. But once they got it down to nine players, the remaining poker was all played as NLHE. This was an effort to make it more accessible to TV audiences, and it seems to have worked.

In the end, Michael Mizrachi won the bracelet, his first WSOP hardware, and the top cash prize of $1,559,046. It was the first big sign that the 2010 WSOP would be a great one for Mizrachi, as he followed up his PPC win by earning a seat at the yet-to-be-played final table of the Main Event.