Andrew Paulson -- Candidacy for ECF President

[JustinHorton]

What was the question about research?

Here's one of several goes from previously:

My position, which is a theory to be proven, is that by aggregating the entire (willing to be aggregated) chess world in England, one achieves significant audience numbers which make an 'investment' in sponsorship by a brand profitable.

.....where's your figures on this? What research have you done? How much does that potentially-aggregated chess world consist of, what audience numbers would you expect to achieve and what value would you expect that to have?

[Andrew Paulson]

I refer you to the Economist of this past week, which presents some of the research we have commissioned:
http://www.economist.com/news/internati ... ing-chance

What precisely are you thinking of in the piece?

As to the Commercial Director question: this is a position envisaged by the Board to be approved by the Council and I have no idea what their plans were/are.

Your candidate statement, expressing your proposals, stated:

"a commercial director will be appointed or elected and paid to find the revenue and manage the sponsoring partners".

So what did you have in mind and how much did you envisage their being paid?

Justin,

Slow down a bit. What do you mean, referring to the Economist: "What precisely are you thinking of in the piece?" It may surprise you, but I didn't write the article.

However, I did commission the YouGov research that they cite. (The Economist uses YouGov themselves as a source of information.)

You're right about the Commercial Director, but I was showing support for an existing bit of ECF decision-making and showing how it dove-tailed with my proposal for generating revenues. What I had in mind is what I just said in my post: "I believe that it should be a commission-based compensation with only a token salary."

Andrew

[Roger de Coverly]

I refer you to the Economist of this past week, which presents some of the research we have commissioned:

As you well know, chess players can be very analytical and the claim as to the number of players worldwide was dissected not long after it first appeared and found to be an extrapolation based on a dubious methodology. It certain wasn't something that a business strategy could be build around with any degree of reliability. If you set aside the competitors in the schools chess challenge, the number of active players in England is around fifteen thousand. This is measurable, as being the headcount of those playing at least one game in the national rating system. Similarly the numbers worldwide on the international rating list and in countries with national rating systems can be measured.

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... f-fun.html
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... wrong.html

[Andrew Paulson]

What was the question about research?

Here's one of several goes from previously:

My position, which is a theory to be proven, is that by aggregating the entire (willing to be aggregated) chess world in England, one achieves significant audience numbers which make an 'investment' in sponsorship by a brand profitable.

.....where's your figures on this? What research have you done? How much does that potentially-aggregated chess world consist of, what audience numbers would you expect to achieve and what value would you expect that to have?

Justin,

The proxy that I cited was the Aegon sponsorship of non-Wimbledon tennis in the UK. The figure they are said to be paying is £5m/year for five years. More people play chess in the UK than play tennis. This is a very rough back-of-the-napkin sort of reality check to indicate -- not a price tag, but -- that there is value for rational sponsors in seeking to address the chess world.

Andrew

[JustinHorton]

However, I did commission the YouGov research that they cite. (The Economist uses YouGov themselves as a source of information.)

That's "research", though - nothing to do with the specific area which I asked whether you had researched. So why refer to it?

(That's even before we get on to your remarkable extrapolation of figures from the research, to which Roger refers below.)

What I had in mind is what I just said in my post: "I believe that it should be a commission-based compensation with only a token salary."

Funny, though - if I were proposing to create a paid post, but I expected that only to be a token salary, I would say that it was only going to be a token salary. Because that's not what people usually expect in a paid post, is it?

Odd that you didn't say that.

[Andrew Paulson]

I refer you to the Economist of this past week, which presents some of the research we have commissioned:

As you well know, chess players can be very analytical and the claim as to the number of players worldwide was dissected not long after it first appeared and found to be an extrapolation based on a dubious methodology. It certain wasn't something that a business strategy could be build around with any degree of reliability. If you set aside the competitors in the schools chess challenge, the number of active players in England is around fifteen thousand. This is measurable, as being the headcount of those playing at least one game in the national rating system. Similarly the numbers worldwide on the international rating list and in countries with national rating systems can be measured.

http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... f-fun.html
http://streathambrixtonchess.blogspot.c ... wrong.html

We're doomed.

[JustinHorton]

The proxy that I cited was the Aegon sponsorship of non-Wimbledon tennis in the UK. The figure they are said to be paying is £5m/year for five years. More people play chess in the UK than play tennis. This is a very rough back-of-the-napkin sort of reality check to indicate -- not a price tag, but -- that there is value for rational sponsors in seeking to address the chess world

So can we now confirm that the amount of research you did into your "first major initiative", the "new business model", was no more than a back-of-the-napkin calculation?

[Andrew Paulson]

However, I did commission the YouGov research that they cite. (The Economist uses YouGov themselves as a source of information.)

That's "research", though - nothing to do with the specific are which I asked whether you had researched. So why refer to it?

(That's even before we get on to your remarkable extrapolation of figures from the research, to which Roger refers below.)

What I had in mind is what I just said in my post: "I believe that it should be a commission-based compensation with only a token salary."

Funny, though - if I were proposing to create a paid post, but I expected that only to be a token salary, I would say that it was only going to be a token salary. Because that's not what people usually expect in a paid post, is it?

Odd that you didn't say that.

Justin,

Your pedantry leads you down a path to nonsense.

Commission-based compensation is payment! No?

It was not a job offer. You think I was deviously trying to hide a salient detail: we are looking for a slave!

Andrew

[Andrew Paulson]

The proxy that I cited was the Aegon sponsorship of non-Wimbledon tennis in the UK. The figure they are said to be paying is £5m/year for five years. More people play chess in the UK than play tennis. This is a very rough back-of-the-napkin sort of reality check to indicate -- not a price tag, but -- that there is value for rational sponsors in seeking to address the chess world

So can we now confirm that the amount of research you did into your "first major initiative", the "new business model", was no more than a back-of-the-napkin calculation?

Justin,

"Back-of-the-napkin" is not a casual approach at all. It is a commonly-used term in investment banking as well as in quantum mechanics to describe a graphic or high-level reality check of boundary conditions. I recommend a book by an old friend: http://www.danroam.com/the-back-of-the-napkin/.

Andrew

[JustinHorton]

Commission-based compensation is payment! No?

No, it's not normally what people think of when they see "paid": if it were anticipated it were to be on a commission basis they would expect to see that. I am sure you're aware of that.

But tell me, the 605 million figure. How did you arrive at that?

[Roger de Coverly]

More people play chess in the UK than play tennis.

It's obviously easier to play chess casually then tennis. But if you look at those who play "seriously", it's rather less obvious that there are more chess players.

Looking at a local county
http://www.lta.org.uk/in-your-area/Berk ... ub-League/, I see they have several competitions . Just looking at one of them, it has 12 divisions of 5/6 teams each containing 4 players. This multiplies up as rather more nominal players than the chess league covering the same geographical area.

[JustinHorton]

[
"Back-of-the-napkin" is not a casual approach at all. It is a commonly-used term in investment banking as well as in quantum mechanics to describe a graphic or high-level reality check of boundary conditions. I recommend a book by an old friend: http://www.danroam.com/the-back-of-the-napkin/

Andrew, you're a waffle merchant.

You answer different questions than the ones you're asked.

You love your verbiage but you won't be pinned down on specifics.

You make grandiose claims which turn into mist the moment they're examined.

It's all waffle.

[Andrew Paulson]

Commission-based compensation is payment! No?

No, it's not normally what people think of when they see "paid": if it were anticipated it were to be on a commission basis they would expect to see that. I am sure you're aware of that.

But tell me, the 605 million figure. How did you arrive at that?

Your wrong.

Regarding the 605m figure, I didn't. That is the number that FIDE submitted to the IOC many years ago to support their application for chess to be considered a sport; they couldn't tell me where they got that number from. Thus, I began doing research to see if the number had any basis in reality. My first port of call was a product called TGI created by Havas, a subsidiary of WPP. When these results were positive and supported the FIDE number, I then hired YouGov to make a more refined and targeted poll of chess in the UK, US, Germany, Russia and India. I have made the original, raw data broadly available, including to the Economist. If the EC Forum had a means of making large data files available to users, I'd happily share this with you.

You might note that this is the first paid, targeted research into chess behaviour ever, anywhere to my knowledge.

Andrew

[JustinHorton]

Regarding the 605m figure, I didn't. That is the number that FIDE submitted to the IOC many years ago to support their application for chess to be considered a sport; they couldn't tell me where they got that number from. Thus, I began doing research to see if the number had any basis in reality. My first port of call was a product called TGI created by Havas, a subsidiary of WPP. When these results were positive and supported the FIDE number, I then hired YouGov to make a more refined and targeted poll of chess in the UK, US, Germany, Russia and India.

This I know. But funnily enough, YouGov didn't support the figure. It does not appear in their research. You repeated it nonetheless.

[Neill Cooper]

More people play chess in the UK than play tennis.

It's obviously easier to play chess casually then tennis. But if you look at those who play "seriously", it's rather less obvious that there are more chess players.

Why is it that chess players always dismiss the idea of 'casual' chess players? It is by being inclusive of such players that I have such a thriving school chess club. One such year 7 pupil has developed into an England youth player.