New broadcast model for World Championship Match

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Mick Norris
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Mick Norris » Fri Nov 11, 2016 8:59 am

Any postings on here represent my personal views

Kevin O'Rourke
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Kevin O'Rourke » Fri Nov 11, 2016 3:27 pm

I am busy tonight watching the football and playing a gig. I don’t want to know the result. I hope I can watch it re-live on youtube tomorrow without knowing the result.

Mick Norris
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Mick Norris » Thu Nov 17, 2016 3:27 pm

More on the legal arguments:
Yale Law Professor
Any postings on here represent my personal views

Chris Rice
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Chris Rice » Tue May 16, 2017 10:37 am

Apparently the Cassation Court in Moscow are ruling today on the broadcasting rights issue. Regardless of this there is a statement from Ilya Merenzon, Chief CEO of AGON. The giste of it seems to be that we should be treating him and AGON as our heroes and saviours of chess instead of allowing evil sites like Chess24 and ChessBomb to operate who are clearly making millions of dollars/pounds from us. Funny that, I can't remember ever paying any money to either one of these sites. Presumably I've been brainwashed by them. We should also pay no heed to any claims that he got AGON is a grubby little deal with Andrew Paulson who in turn got the marketing rights in a grubby little deal with FIDE (or was it Kirsan? The brainwashing by Chess24 and ChessBomb has confused me). Clearly AGON are not in it for the money as evidenced by their failure to pay FIDE what they owe them.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 16, 2017 10:49 am

Chris Rice wrote:The giste of it seems to be that we should be treating him and AGON as our heroes and saviours of chess instead of allowing evil sites like Chess24 and ChessBomb to operate who are clearly making millions of dollars/pounds from us.
It's chess24, chessbomb and others such as ICC who are building the audience for live chess and have been doing so since access to the Internet became mainstream twenty years ago or more. The broadcast analogy is false, since there's never been any doubt about the ownership of video feeds, but minute by minute text descriptions are outside these considerations. That's what a pgn file represents, a text description of a chess game. It doesn't need electronic playback to be understandable.

Let's not forget the threats made to this forum, should we discuss games whilst in progress and illustrate the discussion with positions and statements of previous moves.

Paul Dargan
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Paul Dargan » Tue May 16, 2017 11:13 am

Very astute as always Chris Rice.

Angus French
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Angus French » Tue May 16, 2017 11:17 am

Chris Rice wrote:...We should also pay no heed to any claims that he [Ilya Merenzon] got AGON is a grubby little deal with Andrew Paulson who in turn got the marketing rights in a grubby little deal with FIDE (or was it Kirsan? The brainwashing by Chess24 and ChessBomb has confused me)...
The FIDE-Agon agreement was approved by the FIDE General Assembly (made up of representatives of affiliated national chess federations) and is, to my eyes, onerous on Agon. In particular:
- FIDE receives payment for each event organised by Agon (see 3.2.(b).(ii)) equal to 20% or 25% of the prize money fund; and
- FIDE receives payment from Agon each year from 2016 (see part 4), on a sliding scale, of between 30% and 55% of "Adjusted Gross Sponsorship Revenue" or 500,000 Euros, whichever is greater.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 16, 2017 11:19 am

Angus French wrote: The FIDE-Agon agreement was approved by the FIDE General Assembly (made up of representatives of affiliated national chess federations) and is, to my eyes, onerous on Agon.
Has any of it ever been paid?

Chris Rice
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Chris Rice » Tue May 16, 2017 11:23 am

Angus French wrote:
Chris Rice wrote:...We should also pay no heed to any claims that he [Ilya Merenzon] got AGON is a grubby little deal with Andrew Paulson who in turn got the marketing rights in a grubby little deal with FIDE (or was it Kirsan? The brainwashing by Chess24 and ChessBomb has confused me)...
The FIDE-Agon agreement was approved by the FIDE General Assembly (made up of representatives of affiliated national chess federations) and is, to my eyes, onerous on Agon. In particular:
- FIDE receives payment for each event organised by Agon (see 3.2.(b).(ii)) equal to 20% or 25% of the prize money fund; and
- FIDE receives payment from Agon each year from 2016 (see part 4), on a sliding scale, of between 30% and 55% of "Adjusted Gross Sponsorship Revenue" or 500,000 Euros, whichever is greater.
Well Angus:

a) AGON/Merenzon can't complain as they went into this with their eyes open and they don't seem to be shy of spending money on lawyers so presumably would have been briefed on the deal and if they weren't its their own fault; and

b) How onerous is it when you don't pay FIDE anyway and appear to get FIDE to agree to this?

Angus French
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Angus French » Tue May 16, 2017 11:26 am

Chris Rice wrote:b) How onerous is it when you don't pay FIDE anyway and appear to get FIDE to agree to this?
Well Chris, would you care to quantify how much Agon have paid to FIDE and how much they owe?

I'm not a fan of Agon, BTW. But I do wish reporting on what they have or haven't done to be accurate. The idea that Agon "got the marketing rights in a grubby little deal with FIDE" is patent nonsense. And Agon don't only do the marketing, they also do the organising, relieving FIDE of a considerable burden.
Last edited by Angus French on Tue May 16, 2017 11:34 am, edited 2 times in total.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 16, 2017 11:33 am

Chris Rice wrote:
a) AGON/Merenzon can't complain as they went into this with their eyes open
I cannot help thinking that they are working on a totally fallacious assumption that there are six hundred million people out there just waiting to watch their pay-broadcasts and it's only those pesky established sites that are preventing them cashing in. I would suspect the reality is that the number of people in the world interested in following even the World Championship is several zeros short of 600,000,000.

Roger de Coverly
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Roger de Coverly » Tue May 16, 2017 11:36 am

Angus French wrote:would you care to quantify how much Agon have paid to FIDE and how much they owe?
Have they paid anything at all? Wasn't that one of the issues which forced Kirsan's apparent resignation?

Angus French
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Angus French » Tue May 16, 2017 11:37 am

Roger de Coverly wrote:
Angus French wrote:would you care to quantify how much Agon have paid to FIDE and how much they owe?
Have they paid anything at all? Wasn't that one of the issues which forced Kirsan's apparent resignation?
Of course they have. Look at the accounts.

Chris Rice
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Chris Rice » Tue May 16, 2017 11:44 am

Angus French wrote:
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Angus French wrote:would you care to quantify how much Agon have paid to FIDE and how much they owe?
Have they paid anything at all? Wasn't that one of the issues which forced Kirsan's apparent resignation?
Of course they have. Look at the accounts.
I'm happy to take back what I said Angus but I can only see the audited accounts for 2015 on the FIDE site. Is their some other link you can show me? You can see from the 1st PB meeting of 2017 that FIDE did meet to discuss AGON's arrears so although I can't quantify the amount they owe (or owed) it probably isn't (wasn't) an insignificant amount.

Angus French
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Re: New broadcast model for World Championship Match

Post by Angus French » Tue May 16, 2017 1:45 pm

Chris Rice wrote:
Angus French wrote:
Roger de Coverly wrote:
Have they paid anything at all? Wasn't that one of the issues which forced Kirsan's apparent resignation?
Of course they have. Look at the accounts.
I'm happy to take back what I said Angus but I can only see the audited accounts for 2015 on the FIDE site. Is their some other link you can show me? You can see from the 1st PB meeting of 2017 that FIDE did meet to discuss AGON's arrears so although I can't quantify the amount they owe (or owed) it probably isn't (wasn't) an insignificant amount.
Chris, it looks to me as though the 2015 accounts are the latest. These were published for the General Assembly meetings at Baku in 2016. Presumably the 2016 accounts will be published for the 2017 General Assembly meetings (whenever in 2017 they take place). The FIDE-Agon agreement came into effect in early 2012 so I'd guess that payments from Agon ought to be reflected in FIDE's accounts from 2012 onwards.

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