While it is somewhat questionable to call poker a sport, it is classified as such, and as any real sports fan knows, if you are a real fan, you have to watch the sport of your choice, live. The fact of the matter is if you already know the result of the sporting event thereby your interest, your emotions, your excitement, will be appreciably less than watching the sport live. That is why television contracts are so huge for major sports because there is an embedded audience that is dedicated to watching that sport and advertisers appreciate eyeballs that are engaged and actually watching their TV in real time.
The thing about poker is that although there are myriad ways that one can get their poker fill, such as through podcasts, webcasts, and recorded broadcast programs, the fact of the matter is, because of the structure of poker tournaments, not to mention the incredible amount of downtime in poker tournaments in which there doesn't appear to be anything happening, other than time wasting, posturing, and blind stealing, is that poker in its current tournament structure is way too long in length of time, and way too boring for most of the hands, that even the most die-hard poker aficionado basically wants to "cut to the chase".
This means that poker has a fundamental problem which is that the people most interested in poker TV programs, often have a general idea as to who is/isn't going to make the final table, as well as the result, which takes away a lot of the drama in watching the program to begin with, because the broadcast being shown, is often weeks after the actual event was already concluded. Additionally, the fields of the biggest poker tournaments are so deep, this often means, that the final table participants are unknown to a significant amount of the viewing audience, which cuts down on those that want to watch players that they are familiar with. Basically, having too many players in a tournament, while it does create a very healthy prize pool, just takes too long to come to a conclusion, so with the exception of just broadcasting the final two or three players left, under live conditions, doesn't really work and won't ever generate jaw dropping viewing numbers.
However, poker could become a sport that could easily be televised live or essentially under a very short delay of just minutes, if the structure of the sport was changed. The first change is that the game as televised would be only played player v. player, aka heads up, and in no other form. Secondly, the blinds would increase not by a time clock, but by the number of hands played, so that, for instance, after every 10th hand, the blinds would increase. Next, a time clock, would be initiated, on every hand, and on every street of every hand, with perhaps an option to extend the clock, two or three times during the tournament for each player.
If these aforementioned changes were made, and then executed in real time tournaments to crystallize the actual structure of the game, then you would have a situation in which the broadcasters would have a real good idea of the typical length of the game, and could slot a window for it. While there would be times, when because of the structure being no limit, that the game could end suddenly and quickly, as it is with a knockout in boxing, the broadcaster would have a contingency in place to fill in those unexpected minutes, while also knowing that because of the blind structure and time limits imposed that the game itself could not extend much beyond fifteen minutes longer than allocated.