The league drew an average of 269, 000 viewers per game on ESPN2 this season, or a small fraction of what the sports network draws for the World Series of Poker.

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Thanks to a stable schedule of popular newcomers (Glee and The Cleveland Show) and longer-running hits (House and Bones) as well as the highly rated World Series, Fox was the only major broadcast network to post a year-over-year uptick in the coveted demographic (14%, according The Nielsen Company).

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The network has made a lot of money selling advertising for the World Series and the Fall Classic has also helped Rupert Murdoch build Fox into a valuable brand by increasing ratings for other programs (who can forget the flogging CBS took after the network lost football to Fox in 1994?).

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Left unsaid is that no Yankees and a four game World Series sweep is just about a worst-case scenario for the network.

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Now the network is teaming up with casino giant Harrah's Entertainment, which bought the World Series of Poker, to form another league, the World Series of Poker Circuit.

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