Consultation on the Draft FIDE Live Moves Broadcasting Policy

[Chris Goodall]

I wouldn't mind hearing that "free stuff" phrase a lot less. Chessplayers don't like "free stuff" more than anybody else. It so happens that there is something called the internet and over the past twwenty years, large amounts of chess information, like lots of other kinds of information, has become available on it. We take advantage of it: so do we if we are music fans, for instance, or newspaper readers, or what you will. It's got nothing whatsoever to do with chess as such.

But insofar as it relates to chess, it's a good thing. It's a greatthing. It means that our sport can be seen, easily, by anybody with access to the internet. This is what we need. It means the most casual of players, who in the pat would never ever have dreamed of going to a tournament or buying a chess book, can watch everything up to and including the world championship, and get hooked just as we would like them to be. Hurrah for this. This is vastly more important in the long run for chess than allowing some bunch of grifters to squeeze a few dollars more out of us, which they're not going to squaeeze anyway because we're not going to watch their show. You want more money in chess, you need to increase its audience. What would be the worst, most stupid way to go about that? I reckon it would be restricting chess broadcasts to one set of people who would charge for it. What a super way to drive all the casual fans away that would be.

Capitalism sux. We get it. But somehow Premier League football has managed to get more money into football without giving any games away for free on terrestrial TV. Would it increase the audience for Premier League football if there were live games on BBC1? Of course. By exactly the number of people who aren't willing to pay money for it. While at the same time driving audiences away from the paid services, thereby reducing what the broadcasters are willing to pay the clubs. You can point to the larger audience and say "look, more potential sources of income!" but that rather ignores the fact that you're currently giving them something and not charging them for it. Are you going to start charging them for it later, and hope that your audience doesn't immediately contract back to the size it was at the start?

[JustinHorton]

I wonder, are there possibly any ways of getting people to spend money on chess other than charging them to watch live game transmissions that they presently show no appetite for paying for?

[NickFaulks]

What a super way to drive all the casual fans away that would be.

Not just the entirely casual ones. For 35 years I watched Test match cricket on television whenever I could. Then it became unavailable, but the withdrawal symptoms were nowhere near as bad as I had expected, and I discovered that life went on perfectly well without it. Within a few years I could not put names to the faces of the England team.

Of course, elite cricketers of 25 years ago were reasonably well paid, now they are multi-millionaires. If today's top players think that they are being deprived of untold riches by FIDE's reluctance to milk whatever monopoly rights they have for all they are worth, they have channels to say so. I'm not going to say it for them, because the cricket experience suggests that, as a fan, their gain would be my loss.

[Chris Goodall]

Not of getting people to give money to FIDE. Of getting people to give money to chess booksellers and chess clubs, sure - but isn't that rather our job? Why are we looking expectantly at the organisers of the world championship match to do that work for us? We talk about spending money on "chess" as if FIDE are supposed to be excited by the prospect of losing £1m on an elite event in order to slightly enrich - in the best-case scenario - the ECF. Would the ECF entertain increasing the money they give to FIDE, to reward them for having gotten more casual players interested in chess? Would they heck as like.

[Chris Goodall]

What a super way to drive all the casual fans away that would be.

Not just the entirely casual ones. For 35 years I watched Test match cricket on television whenever I could. Then it became unavailable, but the withdrawal symptoms were nowhere near as bad as I had expected, and I discovered that life went on perfectly well without it. Within a few years I could not put names to the faces of the England team.

Of course, elite cricketers of 25 years ago were reasonably well paid, now they are multi-millionaires. If today's top players think that they are being deprived of untold riches by FIDE's reluctance to milk whatever monopoly rights they have for all they are worth, they have channels to say so. I'm not going to say it for them, because the cricket experience suggests that, as a fan, their gain would be my loss.

How much actual money did you spend on cricket in those 35 years, Nick?

[JustinHorton]

Well shucks, you must be right Chris, there's certainly no way of making any cash from free broadcasts. And if free broadcasts caused more people to become regular players I can't see how that could help in the long run.

[Roger de Coverly]

I wonder, are there possibly any ways of getting people to spend money on chess other than charging them to watch live game transmissions that they presently show no appetite for paying for?

People pay for membership of online servers. In some cases that includes additional services on the live games. So if you want an in depth analysis of a game from the 4NCL, they can offer it. But it's the online servers, not Agon or FIDE who have built the audience. That's mainly as a chess playing community but also includes lectures etc. where the etc. includes transmitting and analysing games as they happen.

[Chris Goodall]

People pay for membership of online servers. In some cases that includes additional services on the live games. So if you want an in depth analysis of a game from the 4NCL, they can offer it. But it's the online servers, not Agon or FIDE who have built the audience. That's mainly as a chess playing community but also includes lectures etc. where the etc. includes transmitting and analysing games as they happen.

There you go, then. We expect Agon and FIDE to act in a way that builds the audience, but we don't actually believe they contribute to building an audience for anyone else's stuff, and when they try to build an audience for their own stuff we tell people not to bother because everything they do is crap.

Tell me why Agon or FIDE should have any interest in throwing us a bone under those circumstances?

[Roger de Coverly]

when they try to build an audience for their own stuff we tell people not to bother because everything they do is crap.

Objectively it is. Did you watch the coverage of the London Candidate a few years ago? It had some worthless gimmicks and perhaps the odd novelty, but video and display quality fell well short of what had been offered elsewhere by the Alekhine Memorial tournament and others.

Tell me why Agon or FIDE should have any interest in throwing us a bone under those circumstances?

I don't see why Agon and FIDE don't get out of the way. A consortium of the major sites could handle online coverage of the Grand Prix, Candidates and World Championship, using tried and tested approaches. They've got the existing audience, so something to build on.

[NickFaulks]

How much actual money did you spend on cricket in those 35 years, Nick?

I spent some money at Test and county games, and on various cricket stuff. Our real difference is that I don't believe that the only things that matter have a pound sign in front of them.

[JustinHorton]

People pay for membership of online servers. In some cases that includes additional services on the live games. So if you want an in depth analysis of a game from the 4NCL, they can offer it. But it's the online servers, not Agon or FIDE who have built the audience. That's mainly as a chess playing community but also includes lectures etc. where the etc. includes transmitting and analysing games as they happen.

There you go, then. We expect Agon and FIDE to act in a way that builds the audience, but we don't actually believe they contribute to building an audience for anyone else's stuff

We don't, because they're not. They could, but it would entail taking the opposite approach to the one they're taking. As they prefer instead to be boneheaded and bullying, why should we be particularly mindful of their interests?

[NickFaulks]

As they prefer instead to be boneheaded and bullying, why should we be particularly mindful of their interests?

To be fair, FIDE are asking how we think they should proceed.

[Chris Goodall]

I don't see why Agon and FIDE don't get out of the way.

As they prefer instead to be boneheaded and bullying, why should we be particularly mindful of their interests?

Because they're FIDE. The Federation Internationale des Echecs. And several pages ago you were insisting that the whole thing didn't just come down to anti-FIDE prejudice.

[JustinHorton]

Do you do non-sequiturs professionally, Chris? Bit of a niche interest, but I confess you're very good at them.

[JustinHorton]

As they prefer instead to be boneheaded and bullying, why should we be particularly mindful of their interests?

To be fair, FIDE are asking how we think they should proceed.

This is so, but it's not as if they have prepared a paper for comment on the theme "we propose to suggest to Agon that they stop being so enormously stupid".