If you’ve ever watched a broadcast of the World Series of Poker on ESPN, you’ll likely be familiar with ball-busting color commentator Norman Chad. Alongside partner Lon McEachern, Chad has served as the network’s WSOP funnyman since ESPN began covering the event in 2003. What many might not be aware of, though, is the 56-year-old’s decades-long past as a sports journalist and sharp tongued media critic, which culminated in his unlikely career as a poker announcer.

—

PocketFives’ WSOP coverage is brought to you by William Hill Poker, one of the largest skins on the iPoker Network. The poker room offers a generous welcome package including a 200% deposit bonus up to $2,000 and a superb VIP program. Visit William Hill today!

—

Just out of college, Chad futilely pursued his dream of becoming a standup comedian, performing for unimpressed audiences in Washington DC nightclubs. “My biggest professional disappointment is how bad I was as a standup comic,” he told DeadSpin.com. “I couldn’t make anybody laugh.”

With a background in journalism, Chad later secured a job as a sports media critic for the Washington Post, contributing to the paper’s Sports Waves column in 1984. He was a natural for the role, but eventually jumped ship to join sports daily The National when he realized that he had hit a wall at the Post.

It was here that Chad dreamed up the idea of writing a sports betting column with all of his picks based on the simple flip of a coin. As fate would have it, the picks came up winners, week after week, for years. The hot streak, along with Chad’s hilarious rationale behind each of the random choices made the column a hit. “Cowboys just announced new Tuesday routine: game film in morning, surveillance video in afternoon,” he wrote in 1999.

It was when ESPN began broadcasting WSOP coverage in 2003 that the 56-year-old fell into the role of poker color commentator. Having no experience filming poker tournaments, the network was “flying blind” and tasked executive Mark Schapiro with turning the game into something exciting for viewers.

“When you break it down, poker is nine guys sitting at a table staring at each other,” said ESPN’s WSOP producer Matt Maranz . “It’s not real exciting. The strategy’s interesting, but you can’t see inside the players’ minds. So the idea was to have fun. We’re going to talk about the players, and have fun with that.”

With that strategy in mind, Schapiro realized that the network needed a commentator who knew poker and could keep the coverage interesting. “I was the only compulsive gambler Mark new,” joked Chad.

In their very first year of filming, ESPN struck gold when Chris Moneymaker won the Main Event along with the $2.5 million first prize after securing his buy-in through a $39 satellite on PokerStars. “This is beyond fairy tale,” Chad said memorably during the broadcast. “It’s inconceivable!”

Producers of the show say that Chad himself deserves a lot of credit for the poker boom which followed. It was he, for instance, who was instrumental in creating the celebrity personas around players like Phil Hellmuth.

“The guy [Chad] has probably made me $10 million, all while turning me into the bad boy of poker—and I love being poker’s bad boy,” Hellmuth told Bluff. “I compared him to the bad boy of tennis, John McEnroe, and bowling’s Pete Weber,” Chad said. “I cast him in the black hat early.”

WSOP Main Event entries continued to grow until the UIGEA was passed in 2006. The following year, only 6,358 players bought in, 2,415 less than the previous year. Even so, ESPN Director of Programming Dan Ochs says that the network is “pretty happy” with WSOP ratings from the “post-boom era,” which still attracts more viewers than WNBA, MLS or NHL games. “The last three years we’ve been flat, which is a decent story for us,” he added.

But according to Ochs, viewers have been tuning back in, with 1.2 million watching last year’s finale, 50% more than 2012’s audience. This year, ESPN hoped to capitalize on the story of Mark Newhouse, the grinder who made two final tables in a row, but ultimately busted out ninth for the second time.

The 2014 final was broadcast live, with Chad adding his unique brand of humor to the mix. Now, unlike his stint as a standup comedian, he performs in front of millions of viewers. “I’m better at my job now than I was then,” he said.