Spoiled Again

Poker was all the rage on TV a couple of years ago. Its popularity has waned a bit, but the premier event - the World Series of Poker - still has a huge presence on ESPN. The WSOP is played in the summer, but ESPN doesn't broadcast it until the fall. And every year, i end up finding out in advance who won the Main Event. I don't want to learn, but someone always spoils it.

This year, i was extra diligent about not reading anything about it. Lo and behold, i thought i had made it, still in the dark* going into this week when it would finally be on tv. I set the DVR to record last night's final episode, because i was flying home from Boston, planning to watch it today. So what happens... i get online this morning to check email and football news quickly before driving the kids to school, and the big headline story on Yahoo is, of course, about the WSOP champion. And, of course, my eye catches the info before i realize it. Spoiled again!

What's even more amazing to me (i didn't discover this until a few minutes ago) is that ESPN was running a crawl yesterday that revealed the winner, and promoted their own show for later that night to see it happen. Who spoils their own show for their own viewers?

* I also just learned that the reason i was still in the dark was that the format had changed this year, and that play had actually been suspended back in the summer when they got to the final 9, and was resumed on Monday.