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WSOP and ESPN - Back Together Again

WSOP Main Event Returns to ESPN With Live Prime-Time Finale in 2026

Written by: Liam Carter

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March 26, 2026

The World Series of Poker (WSOP) has signed a multi-year agreement with ESPN, bringing poker’s biggest event back to the very network that helped build it into a global phenomenon. Starting this summer, ESPN will deliver over 100 hours of Main Event coverage, culminating in a three-night live finale airing in Primetime on August 3-5, 2026.

It’s the most significant broadcast move in poker in at least a decade. 

Since completing their $500 million acquisition of the WSOP in October 2024, NSUS Group has moved quickly — securing the ESPN deal, investing in Hustler Casino Live, and signalling a clear appetite for mainstream reach over niche positioning.

A Historic Partnership Restored

ESPN first broadcast the WSOP Main Event in 1987. Over the following decades, the relationship became the backbone of poker’s cultural moment — most memorably when an amateur Tennessee accountant named Chris Moneymaker turned a $86 online satellite into a $2.5 million victory in 2003, broadcast in full to millions of casual viewers who had never watched a single hand of tournament poker before.

That win, and ESPN’s decision to replay the coverage relentlessly, sparked what the industry still calls the Moneymaker Effect. The 2025 WSOP Main Event drew 9,735 entries and a $90.5 million prize pool. In contrast, the 2003 field was only 839.

In 2021, the WSOP departed ESPN for CBS Sports Network. The move offered more hours of coverage on paper, but CBS Sports Network serves a much smaller audience than ESPN.

What to Expect from the 2026 WSOP Broadcast 

Coverage begins July 2 with Day 1A of the $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em World Championship, streaming on the ESPN App. From there, every tournament day receives a minimum of six hours of programming across ESPN platforms.

Play proceeds until the final nine players are set on July 13. Then the tournament pauses.

The finalists will reconvene 20 days later for a live, three-night finale airing August 3-5 from 9 p.m. to midnight ET on linear television. During the break, ESPN will air specially produced prime-time episodes building storylines around each of the remaining players.

The deal includes approximately 100 hours of original programming per year, according to the official WSOP press release.

The 20-Day Break — A Smarter November Nine?

Longtime fans will recognize the format. From 2008 to 2016, the WSOP ran the “November Nine” — pausing at the final table until November so ESPN could build the finalists into characters before the live broadcast.

The concept worked, but a four-month gap was too long, and momentum evaporated well before the cameras rolled.

The WSOP is betting that twenty days will be the sweet spot. It’s enough time for ESPN to run a meaningful build-up series without the tournament fading from memory. Whether it recreates the cultural electricity of the best November Nine years depends largely on who’s sitting at that final table in August.

What the ESPN Return Means for Poker Fanatics

The production partner tells you everything about the ambition here. The WSOP has brought in Omaha Productions — the company behind the ManningCast on Monday Night Football, as well as Netflix’s Quarterback and Receiver docuseries. Those shows turned sports coverage into character-driven storytelling that casual viewers genuinely sought out.

Applied to poker, that approach could meaningfully shift who tunes in. The WSOP has always had the raw material — unknown players, enormous stakes, and impossible hands at the worst moments. What it has historically lacked is the storytelling infrastructure to make a casual viewer care about the person behind the chips.

It wouldn’t be surprising to see the 2026 broadcast reach audiences poker hasn’t touched since the boom years. “The World Series of Poker is a global phenomenon that transcends the gaming category,” WSOP CEO Ty Stewert said in the official announcement, “and our goal is to bring it to the widest possible audience.”

This deal is also the first major move under the WSOP’s ownership by NSUS Group — parent company of GGPoker — following their acquisition of the brand in 2024. The ESPN agreement signals that the new owners intend to treat the Main Event as a mainstream sports property.

The pieces are in place. The only remaining variable is the one ESPN can’t script: whether a player emerges at that final table the whole country will want to cheer for.

What’s Next for the 2026 WSOP

The 2026 WSOP gets underway May 26 at Horseshoe Las Vegas and Paris Las Vegas with 100 live bracelet events on the schedule. The Main Event kicks off July 2, the final table will be set July 13, and the live ESPN finale runs August 3-5.

For anyone who remembers watching Norman Chad call the Moneymaker bluff on ESPN at 2 a.m., this summer is worth marking on the calendar.

Image: Courtesy of wsop.com