Chess as a spectator sport

[PeterTurland]

Hello,

I don't know about anyone else, but the way I like to watch live chess, is as a background activity.

I like doing the same thing when watching snooker, sort of surfing the net as usual, but glancing up now and again to catch the state of play.

I notice, I cannot do the same thing with tennis, stop watching it and I have lost the state of play.

I'm given to understand, not being an aficionado, that people follow cricket in the same way on R4 long wave.

Looking forward to the kickoff in Chennai in a couple of minutes

[stevencarr]

I imagine you don't want to pay to watch the live games, except possibly world championship matches.

Fair enough, so where is going to come the money to pay professionals?

[PeterTurland]

I imagine you don't want to pay to watch the live games, except possibly world championship matches.

Fair enough, so where is going to come the money to pay professionals?

I've written on this matter before Steven, this is what I wrote.

"Gibraltar rocks the world of chess with a quarter of a billion website hits
From http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=23926

Many arguments in chess arise from a lack of funds in our sport, compared to golf, tennis, football and many other sports that cannot hold a candle to the qualities that our discipline endows our species with.

I've suggested before the way forward, is a micro payment system administered by Paypal. I pay £1 into a special Paypal fund, each board I take a feed from, gets one penny per match, no big amount of money from my pocket and I will give it gladly for the great deal of pleasure it gives me watching live matches and seeing history unfold. I'm sure something can be set up with the major chess servers FICS, ICC, CB etc etc.

I have written to Paypal about my idea and received no reply, perhaps some other people could try.

250,000,000 pennies = two and a half million pounds.

The best thing about our sport is how cheap the equipment is and its global reach, poor countries in Africa can play with pieces molded from mud, it gives many very poor people a route to the top."

[Christopher Kreuzer]

Peter, I think the BBC journalists are following what you say...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-24904517

"10 reasons chess may never make it as a spectator sport"

[Greg Breed]

Peter, I think the BBC journalists are following what you say...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-24904517

"10 reasons chess may never make it as a spectator sport"

Oh Finlo wrote that. I didn't know that he wrote articles although I knew he worked for the BBC. Finlo won the Challengers (U175) at the Herts congress this weekend. A top bloke.

[Peter D Williams]

Joe Public just does not understand the game of chess.How do you explain checkmate to some one who does not play chess? and try explaining to some one who does not play chess how you become an International Master or Grandmaster.
When people do not understand something their tend to change channel rather quick and the sheep in the UK are not the brightest.You have only got to look at what TV programs bring in the biggest rating and your get your answer as to why chess would never take off as a spectator sport in any decent numbers to make it wroth while for a channel to broadcast it.One lives in hope that the sheep of UK will awaken and see.

Well its turning rather cold so make sure you wrap up if you got to go out.

[IM Jack Rudd]

Peter, I think the BBC journalists are following what you say...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-24904517

"10 reasons chess may never make it as a spectator sport"

Reason #10's an interesting one; I can imagine many modern boardgames would actually be a lot easier to present than chess in a way that a general audience would be able to follow. (If nothing else, this is because a large proportion of them have a victory condition of "most victory points at the end wins", which is a very easy idea to grasp, and very generic. Checkmate is much more specific to the game from which it comes.)

[Christopher Kreuzer]

The picture at the top of the article, is that Kasparov, head in hands, in a Caro-Kann from one of his WCC matches? The position on the board (analysis by the commentary team?) doesn't seem to match the moves underneath. I'm guessing that the audience are somewhere like London? Would that be the the 1990 match? Maybe Greg can ask Finlo Rohrer, unless the BBC subeditors added the pics.

[Paolo Casaschi]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-magazin ... r-24904517

"10 reasons chess may never make it as a spectator sport"

Do I understand correctly that according to the BBC chess is actually a sport?

[Sean Hewitt]

"Gibraltar rocks the world of chess with a quarter of a billion website hits
From http://www.chronicle.gi/headlines_details.php?id=23926

Whilst that's technically true, it's massively misleading. When transmitting live chess games, each viewer's browser refreshes many times an hour (usually 2-6 times per minute in fact). Unique visitors is a much more meaningful measure. 1/4 billion hits equates to about 30,000 unique users.

If each of those users paid 1p per game to view, that's not much income I'm afraid.

[Clive Blackburn]

I think the best way to popularise the game would be a TV programme called "Strictly Mate in 3 Moves" broadcast at peak viewing time on a Saturday night, with celebrities trying to solve the problems, Bruce Forsythe presenting and somebody like Bill Hartston explaining the techicalities and giving the solutions

[Simon Ansell]

It's very easy to explain checkmate imo: the object of the game is to capture the enemy king, and checkmate is simply the move before this unavoidably occurs.

Stalemate, threefold repetition, en passant etc. might be different matters...

[Clive Blackburn]

It's very easy to explain checkmate imo: the object of the game is to capture the enemy king, and checkmate is simply the move before this unavoidably occurs.

Stalemate, threefold repetition, en passant etc. might be different matters...

Before all that happens, you need to have memorised the movements of all the pieces (including the double pawn move and castling). I think that is the stumbling block for many people who are just not sufficiently interested to make the effort.

[David Robertson]

On TV in the UK (@US/W Europe), the average 'gaze time' of any scene is 5 secs before a cut. Don't believe me? OK, next time you're watching TV (or popular cinema), count to five, and see.

Quick cuts = action, forward momentum. It's not TV/cinema for 'introspective gaze'. Chess, under these 'visually linguistic' conditions, is unfilmable and unwatchable. Maybe all-action Blitz? Ridiculous! Take any film of a Blitz game - say, via YouTube - and turn the sound off. All you get is two odd folk flapping their hands in the air. Now turn the sound on - and you get much the same!

Of course, this won't stop some people blathering on about chess as a 'spectator sport'.

[Clive Blackburn]

Chess, under these 'visually linguistic' conditions, is unfilmable and unwatchable.

So David, how do you explain the relative success of The Master Game?

Has television really changed all that much since 1980?