ESPN CONSIDERING AIRING MORE WSOP FOOTAGE - Author: KatA 

One year after ESPN pulled off their self proclaimed “groundbreaking same-day coverage” of the WSOP, they’re set to do it again. And not only that, this time senior producer Jamie Horowitz and his team are planning an even better show. Last year’s telecast, which was completed just hours before airing, drew huge ratings and great reviews. Their ratings were so impressive, they equaled those captured by ESPN during a regular season NBA or MLB game. Horrowitz is more than confident about a repeat performance: "I'm optimistic we can do it again. And when I say optimistic, it's not cautiously optimistic, but extremely optimistic in our ability to produce a show I think poker fans all over the world are going to love." It’s not just increased faith in his own abilities that has Horrowitz so confident however. With the revamped format of the WSOP, Horrowitz and his team will now have additional editing time for their show. The WSOP final table schedule now includes an extra day during the time when the November nine transitions from nine players to two. Last year the final table began on Sunday at 11am and continued until midnight. The final two players began heads up play on Monday night at 10pm and played until 2:30am. The fully edited two hours of final table footage aired by ESPN was ready to go at 4pm the next day. This year, instead of a mad 12 hours of editing however, Horrowitz and his team will have an extra day to play with. The final table will begin on Saturday, November 7th, Sunday will be an off day and heads-up play will begin on Monday night at 10pm. ESPN’s footage will air on Tuesday at 6pm, giving them much more editing time to play with. The extra day of editing time will allow ESPN to decide if it does indeed want to go over the allotted two-hour air slot for their final table episode. Horrowitz is particularly excited about this prospect as it means there may be more time dedicated to the heads-up portion of the event. Considering how much they edit the game down, extending the amount of footage they air is a very likely possibility. For example, last year the final table took 15 hours and 39 minutes, making it the longest running Main Event Final table in WSOP history. However, that game was edited down to two hours of aired footage, and of the 274 hands that were played, only 24 were aired. That left a lot of great footage on the cutting room floor, and that’s something that Horrowitz is hoping to do a little less of this year.