Fox Sports won the rights to broadcast 26 episodes of the World Poker Tour (WPT) next season. Fox’s gamble to air Season 7, and re-runs from Season 1, have proven to be a ratings winner for the Sports network available in over 80,000,000 homes.

Season 8 episodes will return to the 1 hour run-time that made the show the Travel Channels #1 rated show during its earlier years. And will hopefully rekindle the interest and buzz the show once created. Many people felt the 2-hour format adopted in later seasons turned casual viewers off, and was a prime cause for the decline in ratings.

The WPT is a series of high stakes poker tournaments from around the globe, culminating in the WPT Championship held at Bellagio where winners from previous stops compete against an open field of players who are willing to pony-up the $25k entry fee.

The WPT also announced that there will be a new stop in Indiana, at the new Hollywood Casino. This will mark the first WPT stop in the Midwest, and also the first event to take place on a Riverboat style property; bringing back memories of poker’s early days in saloons, and on riverboats travelling up and down the Mississippi.

Sweet. Looking forward to this.