button in SafariWSOP Unveils Gigantic 'Mothership Stage' For 2026 Series
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The World Series of Poker is well and truly underway, and poker’s biggest stage now has a literal stage to match.
The WSOP has unveiled its new “mothership stage” for the 2026 series, a sprawling 25,000-square-foot production set-up including 12 feature tables, towering LED displays, and enough lighting to rival the nearby Sphere. It will host streamed feature tables throughout the summer (starting with tonight's $25,000 Heads Up Championship), before taking center stage for the 2026 WSOP Main Event, which returns to ESPN this year.
The setup is also the home for WSOP Countdown, a new pregame show for the stream, hosted by Jeff Platt, Joe Stapleton, and broadcasting legend Norman Chad, bringing poker fans all the big stories of the day, player interviews, and moments before cards go in the air each day.
WSOP's New Stage in Photos
Check out some photos from the WSOP's brand-new featured arena below:
The area spans more than 25,000 square feet.
The setup includes 12,000 LED tiles.
17 feature tables for players to do battle on.
It took 8,000 man-hours to build.
"A Real Arena For Us"
The reaction from the WSOP Countdown team was immediate as the curtain dropped on the new production space with Jeff Platt summing up the scale of what he was seeing, saying it was “more than I envisioned,” before describing it as “a real arena for us, and it’s something that’s special for sure.” Platt added, it was “the new home of the World Series of Poker.”
David Williams pointed to both history and scale in his response, reflecting on the return of ESPN-era production. He said he was “honored, really,” and added there was “no way I could say no.” On the size and ambition of the setup, he said, “This is on the scale, if not bigger than a major production like MasterChef.”
"If you wanna be on a big stage, you gotta build a big stage."
Meanwhile, newly-acquired Joe Stapleton said “It feels weird being on a stage that’s literally 10 times the size of any home I’ve ever lived in combined. If you wanna be on a big stage, you gotta build a big stage.”
For Norman Chad, a legendary broadcaster in WSOP history, the moment was another marker in poker’s long broadcast evolution. He described it as “poker boom 2.0 or 3.0,” and pointed to how far things have shifted from earlier eras, noting “The Rio couldn’t accommodate this.”
Spunky Hwang put the broader vision into focus, outlining what comes next for WSOP content. “What we’re hoping is this third era,” he said, describing a move beyond traditional broadcast and streaming toward a unified production model built around scale, storytelling, and live coverage.
