AGON's handling of the WCC: Good or Bad for Chess?

Hello all, I just wanted to express my dissatisfaction with the way the WCC is being handled and some general observations of why I believe it is being undermined by the people who are handling it for this cycle. Please feel free to contribute below as to your own thoughts on the matter, thanks.

I feel that AGON, by virtue of attempting to suppress alternative and completely legal commentary by other outlets, is actually diminishing the availability and thereby the marketability of the World Chess Championship.

Guess how the real money is made with gaming/sporting events? Advertising.

On the 1st day of the match I went onto AGON's mobile site to view it live, only to find a buggy board where the pieces kept moving between the starting position and the current position of the game. So I went to my computer and pulled up the World Chess website to try and view it from there. To my dismay I realized they wanted 15$ simply to view the game live with commentary. Something which has always been free and public domain, much as a library books are free to rent is suddenly privatized and obscure.

After searching for half an hour or so I then went on to realize that AGON's legal flunkies had threatened all the competent chess websites (cough) with bogus lawsuits which succeeded in browbeating these outlets to back away from providing any live commentary of the event itself.

The only word that comes to mind is disgust, and let me tell you there's no way in hell I'm paying that 15$. I wouldn't pay it if it was one dollar. It's purely on the principle that they are trying to "own" something which is fundamentally impossible to own, all bogus claims such as "the moves are equal to the experience" notwithstanding. All this transparently greedy move does is push viewers away, and although some might not share my level of disdain for what AGON have done, they surely won't be bothered to fork over cash for something they barely want to watch to begin with unless they are already fans.

So my question to anyone supporting AGON's ham-fisted handling of the WCC is this: How do you expect to monetize chess if you aren't able to bring in the necessary viewers to attract bigger advertisers because you're too dense to realize the vast majority of people are not going to pay 15$ to watch a chess match unless they are already a fan of the game?

The answer to increased viewership is incredibly obvious - MORE widespread and LESS restricted coverage and commentary to show off the fantastic venue and the cool features they've added.

You could even make the broadcast itself public domain, and feature in-frame sponsor logos in the corners of the video feed. This could then feed from the outlets who are embedding the video on their site right into AGON's viewership data which would be very effective incentive for advertisers. It's just one example of how the game could stand to benefit from a more open policy, both in popularity and monetization.

Chess is still at the stage where we need to popularize it. Something that is inherently not all that popular isn't ready to be monetized yet, that's dense. It needs mass appeal and professional commentary across a wide range of outlets. Make no mistake about it, AGON is in this for their own profit, not for the long-term popularizing of chess and not for the profitability of the game in general.

And here's an admittedly bitter shot of espresso for some: Chess will never be monetized the way that other sports have because it does not have the same mass appeal. It has an intellectual appeal which needs to be conveyed in the most visually attractive, succinct and personable manner possible (an area where outlets like Chess.com and the Chess Club & Scholastic Center of St. Louis are making great strides), and I hate to break it to you but from the lackluster and often downright amateurish handling of Chess that I've witnessed by AGON, they are not the ones to do it.

TLDR: If you want to increase the monetization of chess,

  You DO

 - spread the broadcast of the World Championship match (which is in New York this year for crying out loud) like wildfire, trying to get as many outlets to cover the game in the highest quality possible which will attract viewership and thereby more sponsors and advertisers.

You DON'T

- attempt to privatize something which has always been public by sicking your legal flunkies on legitimate Chess outlets and bullying them into NOT covering the match because you're delusional enough to think that you can make more money by charging individuals a 15$ minimum fee for the privilege of watching a game which you mistakenly feel you can own.

P.S. Did you see the packages they are peddling on the World Chess website? They have one that's 100$ U.S. I literally laughed out loud when I saw that. Here's betting they sell less than 2-300 of those worldwide before the match is over. Virtual reality chess? Ok. Because it's so exciting to pan around a room and see a guy sitting in a chair while the other guy sits in his chair. "You can actually FEEL how hard he is thinking!"

It's a sad day for Chess in my opinion when the WCC is being mishandled like this. Would be interested to hear others opinions on the matter as well~

 Thanks.

Couldn't agree more. imagine how progressive it would be and how many more views they would get if the whole thing was the world's first 360/VR event that was free for all to watch. They would even probably attract some non chess fans. Fide and Agon are run by crooks and fools.

The broadcast is pretty entertaining. Judit Polgar is doing great commentary. Saturday, they had Frank Brady on and today they just had Lev Alburt.  It is easily worth $15 or $1.25 per game.

It appears that they have 10,000 people watching the live broadcast. That's a good start but I think that they need a lot more if they are going to cover the prize fund.

I think AGON has been looking at it all wrong. I think that unless they realize that the product they are trying to sell isnt chess, its the attention of the viewership (and they are selling that to advertisers) then they will never make  chess commercially viable.  They need determine what a pair of eyes is worth to advertisers, not what a "360 virtual reality" experience is worth to us.

I actually prefer watching events relayed on FICS or ICC, with commentary from a much wider group, from patzers to masters. It's been so long since I've logged into either of these sites that I don't even know if they do it anymore though. It was always enjoyable, to me, to enjoy the games and the conversations with a good cup of coffee and a cigarette :) just MHO

Agree 100% with OP.  I paid for the stream but I wish I didn't.  I enjoy Polgar's commentary but the other guy constantly asks bad questions, I wish Svidler was with Polgar.  Otherwise, the fact that they are forcing people to pay in order to watch a stream is just greedy and does nothing to help chess.  

Well free is nice but there aren't that many millionaires who want to give away millions to support chess. Right now there are 11,600 watching the broadcast. I think I read that they need to get more than 200,000 paying customers in order to cover the costs of the match. I don't see how that can happen.

There is nothing wrong with having a "premium" stream with extra features and charging for it, such as the computer analysis, virtual reality stuff, and whatever else they offer with the membership, but they could at least allow other chess sites the right to stream and conduct their own commentary.  This just limits exposure of what is supposed to be the best event in chess: the World Championship Match.  If they want to be greedy, fine, but don't try to disguise it as trying to "grow chess" because it clearly won't, and in fact might just do the opposite.  

No one pays for the superbowl, world cup, world series or anything else so why do they think chess will get a free pass? I can't imagine the outrage that would occur if they tried to make people pay for those.

Why is it so hard for chess to get it together and stop canibalizing it's own viewerbase with these bad ideas? They need to look at e-sports like DOTA and LOL that started BEHIND chess and completely surpassed it if they're serious about getting chess to the masses. 

When ideas like Agon's fail, which they probably will, chess championships will go back to depending on charity.  I don't think that is much of a plan to grow chess either.

and this is what i meant in my previous comment. You are paying with your viewership...thats how they can charge millions of dollars for a 30 sec commercial spot in the superbowl.

This Pay-per-view mentality doesnt work for chess like it does for say UFC or Boxing...they need a better (and free) product to obtain viewership, and go from there to sell the viewership to advertisers.

And yet there are many groups consisting of many millionaires who invest ungodly sums of money into their sports enterprises and give it away, free to viewers, each and every day. They make their money from advertisers, not from charging people to watch it.

Cable TV companies charge for their service and you expect to pay to attend events live.  Just because some companies make their money from advertising does not mean there is some moral obligation on others to do likewise.  I have something of a distaste for advertising and I am not alone in that.

I can see no reason against this attempt to sell coverage of the championship.

I have not paid for a subscription and the viewing figures quoted above suggest that the attempt is a resounding failure.  But demanding that someone provide free coverage as though that is a right is a silly response.

The sad thing is that the amounts of money needed to support top class chess are so small that they hardly register alongside the sums that go into other sports.

World Chess could be revolutionised by the annual pay of just ONE top Premier League footballer.  Manchester United or Real Madrid's wages bill for one season would fund a World Chess Championship for many years.

The reason is obvious.  Chess is not much of a spectator sport, and even quite strong players get more from reviewing GM games days or weeks (years?) later than they were played after other GMs have added accurate explanatory notes and analysis.

In the two decades after the Fischer-Spassky match there was no shortage of sponsorship for chess. When I shared first place in a small Open tournament in 1984 my prize was 250 pounds Sterling which was as much as I earned in a month back then.  More than thirty years on from then the top prize in the same tournament is a smaller number of pounds, even though the cost of living has increased by a factor of 5 (food, clothes, entry fee!) to 10 (housing).

Millionairres with an interest in chess, as well as many businesses, sponsored lavish events in the past. They did it for love of the game, or for publicity, and there is no reason why they cannot do the same now. 

The difference is that modern chess does not have a larger than life character to compare with Fischer, and modern chess is not surrounded with weird factors that intrigue the general public (like mind control by hypnotists in the audience!).

I don't mind paying but the commentray is pathetic.Polgar is vastly inferior to the likes Of peter Svidler and Jan gustaffson.Not to mention they are pandering too much to low level players.For a World championship,the commentary needs to be much better.Chess24 utterly destroys the official commentary.Charging and then providing garbage service is obviously not good for chess.

Advertizing can raise big dollars when 20 million people are watching your average NFL game. A wildly successful chess broadcast would reach 50,000 people.   

How much do you think that a chess book publisher would pay for the privilege of reaching that audience?

My guess is that for 1/400th of the audience, you can get about 1/400th of the ad revenue.

As a relatively new player, this championship is the first I am watching. I don't know how it has been done before, free or pay, or whatever. So here are some thoughts from someone completely new to the experience of watching a world championship match.

So, I paid the $15, thought I would give it a go. Day 1 was appalling, the stream didn't work for the first hour, the board was broken, the chat was laggy, the video stream often froze while audio continued. I wasn't impressed and wondered if this was just the standard of chess tv I had to endure if I wanted to watch the championships. But things have improved since then, and I've not had any issues on games 2 and 3 (except sometimes it being a bit too noisy in the background of the commentators; not really a big deal though). 

I have to say the presentation is 50/50 for me. It's like they are trying too hard to think of what to say inbetween moves, like silence is the enemy. I personally don't mind. If you've gone over everything and Karjakin is still thinking, its okay to be quiet for a couple of minutes, show us the board so we can analyse it ourselves, etc. They spent ages on game one telling and repeating the stupid not-even-funny Trompowsy "joke". One question Knut asked Judit on game 1 was whether she could explain castling to the viewers. This is (K)nuts. I am sure no one would have spent $15 to watch chess if they didn't know at least the basics of chess. He may as well asked her what moves a rook can make. And then they'll throw it out to the journalist (Caya, is it?) who does a good job herself, but I'm not really interested in whether random 8 year old kids in the building enjoy chess when I could be analysing the board. When a new move happens, everyone stops what they are talking about immediately. When players sometimes take 25 minutes or more to make a move, it is okay to finish your sentence or point and THEN talk about the new move.

And the positives; Peter Doggers has been interesting, I really wish they'd leave him on for longer each game (and I don't know why but Judit seems very argumentative with him for some reason). I also enjoyed some of the guests, such as Mr. Frank Brady who recalled some experiences from his past, especially about Fischer and the games vs Spassky.

Judit has given some interesting insight into the ideas that Carlsen and Karjakin are considering as the game goes on. I really like the thought processes she explains, getting into the mind of the players and also showing us why players DON'T do certain moves, going through a few lines. 

So, my thoughts on the broadcast is that it feels like they can't quite decide on how they should present the games, or rather who their audience is. They are trying to cater for both chess enthusiasts and possible new people they might be able to get interested in chess. But when there is a $15 entry, they've already cut that second part of the audience out and they should cater only to the enthusiasts, cut out all the flimsy 'show' bits and just talk about the chess.

The money isn't so much a problem. If they want to charge, they are entitled to, and I'll pay when I want to watch, but I'd be happier to pay next time if some more effort was made to improve the overall presentation. It's like they want to charge money and cater to new casual viewers all at the same time, and that isn't really a great approach.

Yes, "demanding" is a silly response, but so is ignoring the audience.  AGON is trying to cash in too early. As with any industry in its infancy, it will be some time before you can reap rewards, and until you have gained the viewership you should not turn anyone away by charging for it.  The #1 priority should be how to get as many people's eyes on chess. This is being addressed in different forms, for example chess.com has its PRO league with its shorter time controls and "a team to root for" concept. AGON is trying this virtual reality stuff, which hasnt really appealed to most chess enthusiasts, and in no way garnered viewership from general public.

Again, youre right about not being able to "demand" to get it for free....but the people want what they want, and right now, they do not want to pay for what AGON has to offer.

Its very disappointing to see agon wanting us to pay money to see broadcasts. 

They provided the moves free and live to everyone. They just believe they should have the live broadcast rights. Surely this not difficult to understand.

 That pgns and moves were previously judged to be in the public domain reflects an understanding reached when there was no value to be had by live retransmission. That has changed. I feel certain that courts will recognize and protect the exclusivity of live transmission rights.