A Week in Review: WSOP Ratings Are In, NGNF Is Back, and Hawkins Is Champion Once More

The 2026 World Series of Poker is mostly behind us, with only the Main Event final table left to play out, and it’s been a major success, with millions of views and interactions recorded by the poker fans across the WSOP’s various social media channels. 

This week, we finally saw ESPN start its long-awaited coverage of the Main Event, and the early results have been mixed, with diehard poker fans generally singing high praises, but the numbers telling a different story. 

The first two episodes of this year’s official documentary-style WSOP Main Event coverage went live on ESPN, and the ratings have been somewhat disappointing when compared to the earlier years.

Of course, the WSOP hasn’t been on ESPN since 2019, and the network only invested limited resources into marketing this year’s coverage, which meant the average viewer probably had no clue the Main was back on the network. 

According to the available data, the first two episodes of this year’s Main Event coverage saw 173,000 and 186,000 viewers tune in to watch, a significant downtick from the past, when an average WSOP episode would get up to a million live viewers. 

Of course, the downtick has had a lot to do with people simply not watching cable TV as much these days, and the fact that the diehard fans already had a chance to watch the coverage of the early days via live stream on the ESPN app. 

The real test for ESPN’s coverage of the 2026 WSOP will come on August 3 and 4, when the Main Event Final Table will be streamed in real time on ESPN for the first time. 

With the final table action streamed live, we can expect the poker world to tune in en masse, and rating records for a WSOP episode on cable TV to be broken. 

Yet, beyond the final table coverage, it’s likely the WSOP coverage on TV will never be quite as attractive as it was in the past, as younger generations of viewers shun TV altogether, and the average viewer continues seeking their content on-demand, rather than browsing through the channels in the hopes of stumbling across something worth watching. 

No Gamble No Future Is Back on PokerGO

Along with the first two episodes of ESPN’s WSOP coverage, this week also brought us a brand new season of No Gamble No Future, one of PokerGO’s hottest shows. 

Season 8, presented by PokerStars, brings two groups of players with significantly different vibes: one headlined by the Poker Brat, and another filled with action maniacs like Sam Kiki. 

With 12 complete episodes, the new season has a lot of amazing content for the average poker fan, and it’s some of the best live cash game content we’ve seen in a while. 

Phil Hellmuth is joined by Shaun Deeb for the first six episodes, and seeing the two butt horns and exchange needles simply makes for amazing TV. Add in a few adorable moments with 3Coin, the presence of the always charming Jennifer Tilly, and the youthful energy of Abby Merk, and you have hours of poker action you don’t want to miss. 

The season goes completely off the rails in its second half, as Sam Kiki takes charge and brings his fellow high rollers into the ring to play for incredibly high stakes and with nearly no control. 

Kiki even managed to play a pot worth nearly a million dollars with one of the lesser-known high rollers, who made quite an impression on the show, as the group managed to maintain great spirits despite the money in play getting very real. 

If you were looking for a new thing to watch in poker, I highly recommend taking a peek at the new season of NGNF over on PokerGO. 

Maurice Hawkins Just Keeps on Winning

I wrote about Maurice Hawkins having the best WSOP of his life just days ago, and the man has already managed to get back in the winner’s circle and win the 26th WSOPC ring of his career, just days after leaving Vegas. 

Following a summer where he came the closest to winning his first WSOP bracelet yet, Maurice headed to Oklahoma to play the next WSOPC festival at the Choctaw Casino & Resort in Durant. 

Hawkins entered the $1,700 WSOPC Main Event at Choctaw along with hundreds of WSOPC grinders, and ended up making the final table alongside Ari Engel, the one player still in pursuit of his WSOPC ring record. 

Yet, it was meant to be for Maurice once again, as he was able to go all the way and earn himself yet another ring, extending his record to 26, and continuing to rise through the ranks of poker’s greats. 

Despite all the controversy and problems away from the felt, Maurice Hawkins has been having the best year of his professional career, and he’s allowed his play to do the talking, staying mostly silent on the other topics in public. 

Hawkins added another $76,380 to his impressive $7.7 million in tournament earnings, even as he enters his next tournament and seeks to ensure his name remains a part of poker history, and continues to praise God for his good fortune in life, despite any troubles that may have found him along the way.