Norman Chad was back where he belonged this past summer: talking poker and picking on Phil Hellmuth at the World Series of Poker.
Alongside longtime partner Lon McEachern, Chad helped bring a familiar sound back to ESPN. The sense of nostalgia was impossible to ignore.
Whether you missed the rants or lost count of how many ex-wives Norman has, it still felt good to have him (and Lon) back in the mix during ESPN’s Main Event broadcasts and the pregame shows.
Everyone had an opinion, but what did he think of the new setup? We caught up with him to find out what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improving ahead of next summer’s WSOP in Las Vegas.
'The return to ESPN is a very good thing'
What was one of the main highlights of the summer for you?
I have to start with the WSOP LIVE app – it’s a game changer for most players. It's so simple to use, so simple to sign up, and so simple to sit down and play.
And, to tell you the truth, it's a real boon for your multiple re-entry bandits, who can now, with a couple of clicks, just rebuy and rebuy. You don't have to walk anywhere. There's no walk of shame. There are no lines. I guess, finally, the future has come to us, and I know it’s going to get even better.
Were you happy with ESPN airing the Main Event again?
I know people were poo-pooing it a bit because viewership was low and all that, but the return to ESPN is a very good thing.
And to have the Main Event livestreamed every day on the ESPN app, on ESPN Unlimited, ESPN Plus, is a huge boon. And having the delayed live final table on ESPN and ESPN2 is a huge boon.
It’s a very different world now than it was when we all watched on cable.
Yes, we're in a totally different viewership world now than we were 20 years ago when the poker boom occurred.
ESPN used to be in about 100,000,000 homes; now it's in 65,000,000 homes in the US. These days, people watch events on YouTube, Twitch, and other platforms.
What people are forgetting again is ESPN’s worldwide imprint. We won't notice that in the US, but because of the new contract, the Main Event is airing worldwide. ESPN International has 70+ channels across Europe, and you can get it on demand on HBO Max.
I believe the ESPN deal over the next few years is huge for the growth of poker and the World Series of Poker.
How did you feel about the players who made it to the final table of the Main this year?
The final table was a nice, diverse, interesting group. It’s hard. When you're coming down the stretch, you're hoping to get a Grinder, a Negreanu, or a defending champion, but that never happens.
It was still a really good group with longtime pros Greg Mueller and Michael Gagliano in there. They provided some very entertaining poker. You sometimes want a villain in there, but we had no villains.
Will Lucas Jumalon be a good ambassador for the game?
Do you have any thoughts on our new WSOP Main Event champion, Lucas Jumalon?
You know, at any age, Lucas handled himself well. He was a joy at the table. The fact that he is 22 is just even more remarkable.
If you're doing that at 32, 42, or 52, yeah, you're doing a great job. At 22, to have that type of maturity, to understand the moment and treat it that way, I was really impressed.
And he appears to have his head on straight and wants to embrace this achievement. I'm never big on whether you want to be the ambassador or not. If you don't want to be the ambassador, it doesn't come with winning the bracelet. You can just go and disappear. And we've had many WSOP Main Event winners who chose to do just that.
But if you want to take on the Chris Moneymaker role or what Greg Raymer did afterward, then great. And Lucas apparently wants to.
He’s taken on a tough challenge also.
Yes, and he’s going to be rolling that rock up the hill for a long time, making online poker legal again throughout the United States.
I hope it’s possible. I thought it wasn't going to come back forever. And we're halfway through forever right now.
In my conversations with Lucas, he seems to be very grounded and prepared for what might be ahead.
I agree. As I said, his head appears to be on straight. He has a great relationship with his father, everyone around him seems to think he's the greatest kid in the world, and it's hard to believe that earlier this year he was getting a college diploma.
But yeah, the fact that he handled everything so well, and that he was just graduating from college several months ago, is remarkable.
I am assuming you enjoyed being back working with Lon McEachern?
I've been with Lon forever. When we're not broadcasting together, we opened up a chutney store a few years ago. He runs it. I don't know anything about chutney. I'm just there to be the greeter.
Seriously, it always feels good to be back alongside Lon. A lot of people came up to us during the summer and said it was great to see the two of you back. They asked, 'Where have you been?' We hadn't gone anywhere.
That's part of the sadness of the past several years when we were on CBS Sports Network and PokerGO. We dropped out of sight. We did the broadcasts every year, and nobody knew we were doing them.
Did you agree with the delay before the final table? Did it work for the overall presentation of the Main Event?
I still think the delay concept is smart, but it's another work in progress. The problem was we only had four post-produced episodes on ESPN leading up to the final table.
Four is not enough to cover the Main Event. They are 45 minutes per broadcast. There's just no way you cover all eight days. What I do know is that having only four broadcasts leading to the delayed final table wasn't enough.
'We need to do better at showing mixed games'
I enjoyed the Countdown Show you did each day before the start of play. It reminded me of SportsCenter and was a great idea.
The WSOP established a daily studio show, which is a great idea. Jeff Platt hosted it, with David Williams, Joe Stapleton, and me. It gives more meaning to everything that is going on for six straight weeks.
I still would take myself off the Countdown Show and bring in a woman. We're trying to grow the game that way anyway. There are women out there who now speak English. If English is not your first or second language, you probably can't do it because we're doing it in English. But I would bring a woman onto that show, whoever that may be. That would make me a happier camper as a poker community viewer.
I know you want to see more mixed games coverage at the WSOP. And many players have voiced the same sentiment.
It’s a pet peeve of mine that the World Series is tired of hearing from me. First of all, as far as our live streams go, we have shut out mixed games almost completely. Ty Stewart keeps telling me every time I bring up mixed games, ‘Norman, nobody wants to watch razz.’ I’m not even talking about razz; I’m talking about all the other mixed games.
They will watch razz if you have Shaun Deeb, Nick Schulman, Daniel Negreanu, or Grinder at the final table. Because in those $10K big mixed games, you have the biggest stars in the game.
So we need to do better at showing mixed games. Almost all we do is show no-limit hold'em. So we showed the Poker Players Championship, of course, and we showed a few pot-limit Omaha events. Still, we need to show more mixed games.
What’s your take on the overall new set the WSOP introduced this year?
There are reasons I love the Palace set and reasons I hate the Palace. The Palace looks terrific, and it plays well on TV with the three different TV feature tables.
However, there is room for improvement. If you're at the venue, you can't access these tables. There's no real rail and no nearby spectator area. It’s more like a TV studio set.
When you're watching it on TV, there might be one or two people in the distance on a rail who can't see anything. It's just empty.
What’s the solution?
We need to find a way to build a rail in there and add spectator seating in those areas. They added the LED updates on the chip counts rolling by above the final table. That's a huge step up.
I'd still like to see an iconic stadium scoreboard right off the set, like at Wrigley Field. That would be really cool. It could have the chip counts, tournament updates, and more. A WSOP stadium scoreboard would be a great visual.
Overall, the new set looks great, but we need to make it more viewer-friendly.
Are there any other vital improvements you would like to see happen?
Yes. The food. I know that my greatest idea is never going to be realized - dim sum carts rolling through the aisles. Dim sum carts; my god, it's a cash cow. They'd be bigger than McDonald's.
That probably won't happen because of politics and the established restaurants in the casino they don’t want to take business away from. Your mom can't fix a lunch for everybody in a paper bag or a nice lunch box. But we're hungry. Dim sum, please.
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