The number of players in the Main Event went from 512 in 2000 to 6,358 in 2007.   Also the number of events available doubled in that time frame.

Information gathered from the WSOP web site ...


World Championship - No Limit Hold'em (Event 25)
Thursday, May 18, 2000 to Tuesday, May 23, 2000
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $5,120,000
Entries: 512

Chris (Jesus) Ferguson $1,500,000


World Championship - No Limit Hold'em (Event 27)
Monday, May 14, 2001 to Saturday, May 19, 2001
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $6,130,000
Entries: 613

Juan Carlos Mortensen $1,500,000


World Championship - No Limit Hold'em (Event 35)
Monday, May 20, 2002 to Saturday, May 25, 2002
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $6,310,000
Entries: 631
Robert Varkonyi $2,000,000


No-Limit Hold'em Championship (Event 36)
Monday, May 19, 2003 to Friday, May 23, 2003
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $7,802,700
Entries: 839

Chris Moneymaker $2,500,000


No-Limit Hold'em World Championship (Event 33)
Saturday, May 22, 2004 to Friday, May 28, 2004
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $24,224,400
Entries: 2,576

Greg (Fossil-Man) Raymer $5,000,000


No-Limit Hold'em Championship (Event 42)
Thursday, July 07, 2005 to Friday, July 15, 2005
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $52,818,610
Entries: 5,619

Joseph Hachem $7,500,000


No-Limit Texas Hold'em World Championship Event (Event 39)
Friday, July 28, 2006 to Thursday, August 10, 2006
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $82,512,162
Entries: 8,773

Jamie Gold $12,000,000


World Championship No-Limit Texas Hold'em (Event 55)
Friday, July 06, 2007 to Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Buy-in: $10,000
Prizepool: $59,784,954
Entries: 6,358

Jerry Yang $8,250,000


On a curious note ...

in 2000 the number of players 512 times entry fee of $10,000 equals the prize pool of $5,120,000.

From 2003 - 2007 not all the money made it to the prize pool.

A cool 5 million was taken off the top in 2006.