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2009 World Series of Poker Main Event Television Ratings Went Down Slightly

More than 2.1 million television viewers in the United States watched Joe Cada become the youngest world series of poker (WSOP) Main Event champion in the tournament's history on November 10th, 2009.

However, the TV viewers numbers were down slightly from the 2.6 million television viewers who watched twenty-two years old Peter Eastgate set the same WSOP record in 2008.

In the days before the taping, ESPN officials predicted that the TV rating would improve considerably considering the presence of one of the best poker players in the world, Phil Ivey and a major increase in WSOP Main Event coverage on the network leading up to the final table.

Instead, ESPN's telecast's of 1.8 household coverage rating means that the poker show was on in an average of 1,806,113 household in the US this year.

It went down slightly from the 1.9 rating it earned for the 2008 World Series of Poker final table. But despite the slight decrease, it appears the four-month delay on the WSOP final table continued to draw the interest of poker enthusiasts. The total WSOP final table numbers remained up from the 1.3 rating and 1.55 million viewers the final table received in 2008.

ESPN's total fifteen-week schedule of World Series of Poker coverage, including thirty-one telecasts, broke even with last year, averaging a 1.0% rating.

But the network's plan to show more WSOP Main Event coverage than ever before appears to have help improved averages for households up nine percent to 1,024,901 and viewership up seven percent to 1,228,008. Aside from that, there was thirteen percent improvement in viewership in the Male twenty-five-fifty-four age demographic, which is the target market of poker.

11/19/2009, Thursday
Todd Sanders

2009 World Series of Poker Main Event Television Ratings Went Down Slightly

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