WSOP Main Event Ratings Up

Ratings for the delayed final table aren't in yet, but ESPN is touting higher ratings for the WSOP. Card Player reports:

... ESPN’s 30 WSOP episodes are up 6 percent from last year (with an average Nielsen rating of .90), and its main-event episodes are up 10 percent (with an average Nielsen rating of 1.01). A Nielsen rating of 1.0 translates to 1,145,000 households.

Running the numbers, one determines that the non-Main Event episodes were flat from last year.

The final hour of ESPN’s Oct. 21 episode, which saw the final 79 players of the tournament narrowed down to 27, had a bigger audience than the 2007 main event final table...

The 10 p.m. hour of the Oct. 21 episode earned a 1.44 Nielsen rating, while the 2007 final table had a 1.38 rating.

ESPN’s Oct. 28 episode, which ended with only the November Nine left standing, boasted a 44 percent increase from last year and obtained a Nielsen rating of 1.59. The last time ESPN poker had ratings this good is when Jamie Gold talked his way through his monster field of 8,773 players in 2006.

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