Can chess force broadcasters to change the channel and put it on TV?

Over the past week, a new chess event with a tw, called Checkmate: USA vs India, found a place in the calendar. The tournament will see young gunslingers like D Gukesh, Arjun Erigaisi and Divya Deshmukh lead Team India against the might of Team USA featuring – among others – old warhorses Hikaru Nakamura and Fabiano Caruana. The goal, organisers told The Indian Express, was to drag chess from the “fringe of mainstream sports” and onto television screens, a challenge that has proved daunting for even legacy chess events with decades of hory.Chess is one of those unique sports that gets most of its eyeballs from streaming platforms or YouTube. Forays on television, not counting highlights packages, have been rare even in a country with a booming chess culture like India.
It’s a problem so vexing that even FIDE CEO Emil Sutovsky admitted in a recent interview on Chessbase India: “Maybe, we don’t have a product that is ready to be televised in a way that millions of people can follow it.”
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Sutovsky, who was part of the team that convinced NBC Sports to broadcast the 2021 World Chess Championship, said that getting a major network interested in buying broadcast rights for chess tournaments from start to finish was the “most complex thing” in the sport.
But what is it about chess that makes it ideal for streaming but not for television?
The obvious answer is that in classical chess, a game might end in a draw in three hours or stretch on for seven, leaving a TV network unsure about what window it grants for a tournament. In this aspect, it seems to share its woes with tennis, where a match can end in two quick sets or stretch on for five at a Grand Slam event.
Events like the Global Chess League (GCL) — which anyway had games in the shorter rapid time control format — made two alterations to their chess broadcast last season to make it more TV-friendly. It did away with increments last season, which is something that will also be attempted when chess is played at the Esports World Cup later this year. It meant that all match-ups between two franchises were restricted to a 46-minute window of actual playing time.Story continues below this ad
Another tweak the GCL made in Season 2 to make the league more of a television product was changing the look of the broadcast itself: they eliminated the ubiquitous tiny box that exs on every broadcast with the commentators visible at all times. The space freed up was used for more graphics to simplify the sport for the casual follower. GCL, in fact, got a dedicated team to work on graphics to turn it into a made-for-TV product.
“Chess has grown big because of streaming, and streamers have done a fantastic job in bringing it to audiences. But if it has to be brought on TV, the product has to be looked at again,” GCL CEO Sameer Pathak tells The Indian Express.
He calls GCL a “made-for-TV, fan-first attempt at chess”, adding that the current chess broadcasts are actually made for streaming.
“TV requires a better quality production — the cameras, the lighting — than what it is there currently,” he says. “On streaming, you get hardcore chess fans. But on television, you have the opportunity to catch the attention of casual fans, somebody who is there to watch an IPL game or a football match. If you have to compete with the NBA, the English Premier League or IPL, your production cannot be subpar. If you want to be on TV, you will be compared to other leagues and other sports.”Story continues below this ad
GCL had success in getting the sport shown live on television abroad in its two seasons. In India, JioCinema streamed the action live on its app. Now, the organisers are hopeful that they will solve the TV puzzle in India too.
Example to emulate
Kjell Madland, the founder and tournament director of the Norway Chess tournament, has probably had the most success in turning it into a television sport. Norway, after all, has had TV 2 Sport broadcasting every move at the competition live for over a decade now. Last year, the event was streamed live on the Sony LIV app in India with the broadcaster’s sports channels showing highlights packages. This year, Norway Chess will have a television presence — as highlight packages or full livestream — in 20 countries this year.
Ask Madland what tournaments need to do to get chess on TV, and he says: “Chess is a complex game that requires those who broadcast it to do so in a way that even those without chess knowledge can understand what’s happening. To make it a TV sport, the format needs to be more TV-friendly in terms of timing, and broadcasts must be designed to create excitement for the audience.”
Ask Madland why Norwegian broadcasters have put live chess on TV, while other countries have not, and he points to the Scandinavian nation’s most famous chess product: Magnus Carlsen.Story continues below this ad
He says that Norway Chess started roughly around the same time that Carlsen became world champion. “In the beginning, the main reason for television broadcasts in Norway was likely the great interest in Magnus Carlsen rather than chess itself,” Madland says. “But now, there is a strong interest in chess itself.”
With the likes of Gukesh, R Praggnanandhaa, Erigaisi and Divya leading India’s charge on the battlefield of 64 squares, there is hope that they could also emulate Carlsen and push chess onto TV as a sport soon.