English Chess Forum

Having just read through the posts of Carl, David and Steve et-al about them trying to bring internet coverage of the championship to the masses with a budget of 34p and two rolls of sticky tape, I can't understand why the ECF does not re-order its considerable finances to provide much better support and facilities to those volunteers its asks to deliver the event.

It is called investment in marketing.

When I briefly became ECF chief exec, I quickly discovered that the ECF wanted control of the event to keep the Welsh and Scots in their place and ...er...that was it. No sense of the federations working together to deliver a flagship event.

The ECF marketing director does not regard the event as part of his remit - the board gets involved only on pain of mass resignations and when costs needed to be cut - "an ECF war cry" the publicity budget was axed. I reinstated that but again the threats of resignation filled the air.

My admiration for most of the volunteers behind this event knows no bounds - but without serious investment in video webcams, broadband capacity, interactive boards, and spectator facilities, the championships will continue to look like a glorified weekend congress and the press will continue to shun us - despite the sterling efforts of Bob Jones who i hope is still in post.

Why does the marketing director (aka. the invisible man) not consider it part of his remit?

Pushing it on other chess web sites would at least be a start would it not?

He makes his own remit - which consists of meeting various "Company Executives" at Guernsey airport and agreeing with them that chess can not be marketed at present - and then reporting these conversations to the board.

Though to be fair - he was initially elected on the basis that he was not Cyril Johnston - he openly acknowledged he knew next to nothing about marketing..... but he did know a lot of Company Executives

We need some TV coverage...along the lines of the old Bill Harston, Raymond Keene coverage of world champs, some time ago.... I think a specialist TV channel is required to cover minority sports/interests. If they can manage to promote snooker, darts...and even `Big Brother`, then I`m sure a more interesting alternative could be offered to cover the chess.
I quite like the golf type format, ie, where the cameras flick from one match to another to cover interesting positions or key situations....a few informed/informational comments from presentors could set the scene and provide background info.
I`m sure the public would find this of interest...along with interviews, etc....and maybe chess would take on more new faces at local clubs, as people start to see this as a great social/recreational activity for the masses. Must be better than watching some of those `soaps` on the box..... From small beginnings many will quickly progress to expert levels.
As for marketting...you`re right Martin...a bit more effort in this department, right across the chess spectrum, I`m sure would bring great benefits. There is too much apathy in our chess bodies. One area where more chess promotion I`m sure would be beneficial is across the Congress scene. As a simple example, e-mail shots/reminders put out about 2 weeks before a congress can help trigger more entries, and remind players that an event is imminent...it is all too easy, with so much stuff on email, to overlook upcoming events amongst all the clutter. At a basic level, clubs should be more pro-active in promoting themselves. Local Press, libraries, websites, newsagents, etc all offer facilities.... a `free` notice to the local Sports editor asking for a plug in the `Forthcoming events` section, will often yield a response. Circulars to local secondary schools and colleges can be helpful. For too long, officials have basked in the glory of Fischer....
Your comment about Scottish, Welsh chess being `ignored` I again agree with...... I still lament the (bogus) axing of the BCF, which I felt offered a wider and more prestigeous platform, and offered the prospect of a more united UK chess presence....maybe even going for `UK international teams`, funded jointly, which might help with budgets...if we could get the parties to cooperate. Patience...... I hope this can be restored

Okay, this is somewhat slipping from the point, but.... Chess will never be a sport/ game for the masses in England. Sounds negative but it's true. We aren't an intellectual nation. As sad as it is, in England people would much rather watch people sitting about doing very little (Big Brother), then watch chess on tv. If you can find a channel that would be willing to show chess I'd be mighty impressed as all shows are judged by their viewing figures, and a chess show would bring in very low figures.
A slight aside, and I mentioned this in another thread- how is it possible that Canada can get the funding to have Michael Adams in their national championships, whilst we can't do likewise in ours? Surely, and I don't mean to disparage Canada, with England having a far greater chess history, and the chance to see England's number 1 play in his home championships, it must be a much easier sale to make to sponsors.

Was that not MonRoi sponsored (for live broadcast...) with them being a Canadian company and all that?

Is it also possible that Adams wanted to visit Canada rather more than Torquay so pitched his required fee accordingly?

Laughs Razors, very fair

If the servers could handle the traffic, maybe a link to the site on the BBC website would be a help?

Alex you seem to only mention Sarah's losses on Brits thread, shes won her last 2

Well, you seemed to lose interest after the first couple of rounds, so I stopped giving you updates.

I'm sure this is true ... but I'm not sure that it's about England as a nation. Wouldn't what you've said be true everywhere? Wouldn't it have been true everywhere at any time since TV was invented (except perhaps the Soviet Union)?


What I do find interesting - as was pointed out on other threads when we discussed this a while back - is that the more TV channels there are the less chance there is of chess being on the tellybox. Strange how that works.

Chess as you say will (probably) always be a minority interest. Personally, I think there's more to be gained by developing internet coverage of chess - where the game is already popular - than focusing on TV. TVland doesn't care.

Lose interest?

Well, you never mentioned her. So I didn't bother telling you the result.

So by lose interest you mean I did not post on the forum?