Poker News Daily has learned that the upcoming PokerStars Caribbean Adventure (PCA) final table in January will air live on the ESPN family of networks.
The PCA is set to begin its 48-tournament schedule on January 6th at the Atlantis Hotel and Resort in the Bahamas, with the $10,000 Main Event set to begin on January 8th. As a part of the festivities, ESPN will cover the final table of the PCA Main Event in its entirety over its family of networks. At the moment, ESPN is dedicating a minimum of five hours of programming time on ESPN3.com and ESPN2.
At 5:00pm ET on Saturday, January 15th, ESPN3.com will open up its coverage of the final table. According to Kimberly Jessup, a spokesperson for ESPN Communications, “The broadcasts on our outlets will be delayed for an hour. By doing this, we will be able to provide hole card camera viewpoints for our audience, enhancing the poker experience.” At 10:00pm, the web broadcast will continue, but ESPN2 will join in to provide a simulcast.
At this moment, it is unknown who will be the commentators for the tournament. For previous ESPN poker broadcasts, Lon McEachern and Norman Chad have provided play-by-play and color. McEachern and Chad have been the voices of the World Series of Poker since 2003.
“For the first time, viewers at home will see a poker telecast from start to finish, with all of the strategy of world-class poker players playing in real-time and completely unedited,” Matt Volk, the ESPN’s Manager of Programming and Acquisitions, stated during the announcement.
PokerStars.net North America Regional Marketing Director, Joe Versaci, is also looking forward to a groundbreaking moment in poker. “This is one of the most exciting announcements ever in televised poker,” Versaci said. “This is the first time people watching online or on TV will be able to see everything that happens at a poker table. So much happens in poker that never makes it to the final television edit, but this will show exactly how top-level players go about winning a massive tournament. There’s so much money on the line… it’s going to be gripping.”
With this broadcast of the PCA, ESPN’s production will become only the second live tournament final table to be broadcast on television in the United States. Although ESPN provided delayed coverage of the final table of the 2010 WSOP Main Event final table through ESPN3.com, it has not attempted to show a tournament in almost real-time.
For the first broadcast of a live poker tournament’s final table, we have to go back to 2004. Fox Sports Net featured live coverage of “Championship Poker at Turning Stone,” which saw such players like John Juanda, Phil Ivey, Paul Phillips, Robert Williamson III, Randy Jensen, and a then-unknown John D’Agostino on the felt. Fox Sports Net used a special scanner to show viewers the hole cards on a five-second delay.
Two other made-for-television events have also been featured live on Fox Sports Net. In 2005, the Full Tilt Poker Invitational was played out live from Monaco and the Full Tilt Poker Championship was shown live from the Wynn in Las Vegas. These tournaments, however, were invitational events, not an open multi-player tournament like the Turning Stone or PCA events.
