Do chess events make money?

It seems like many of these events, even with the top grand masters, have small crowds and limited commercial sponsors.  Yet there are some large purses in these events.  

For example;

The Champions showdown is on right now for example.   $300,000 in total prize money.  No crowd at the St Louis chess club, 3 commentators that need to be paid, no commercials during the commentary.  This is probably a case of Sinquefield forking over the dough just for his own personal kicks. 

King Salman Rapid and Blitz paid for by rich Sauidis just for PR.

  WCC, I don't know where the money came from to pay Magnus and Fabi.  

Do any of these events get enough outside money to cover the costs and even make a profit?  

Seems like they don't even try to make money.  St. Louis chess club doesn't even provide seating for spectators.  It seems like they could sell some $10 tickets or something. 

It is amazing to me we as spectators get to enjoy so much chess at the top level on the internet, when there is no financial incentive to provide it.  

In general, without sponsorship, there is no money to be made. The St. Louis chess "club" is basically subsidized by what looks like a goofy Batman Villain. If not for him, the whole place would close up.

We need to get Bill Gates involved in chess, now there is a guy with a few bucks to throw around!

I think the CCA makes a profit, they run a ton of tournaments all over the US!

Rex Sinquefield may not have a fortune on the scale of Bill Gates, but he is a billionaire.  It is estimated, that in the 10 years since he established the St. Louis Chess Club, he has spent close to $50 million.  Now, much of that has gone to the physical construction of the club, itself, as well as the Chess Hall of Fame across the street from the club.  But he has also spent countless millions on the US Championships, Jr. Championships, and quarterly GM and IM events.

Elite chess tournaments/events will never make money because chess players are generally the cheapest of all.

Bill Goichberg, head of the Continental Chess Association, began running tournament-for-profit events over 50 years ago.  In the first 20 years, he was lucky to eke out a living,  but then he married a woman that showed him how to increase his profit margins.  But, Goichberg, has still not made a great living off of his enterprise, and no one else has come close.

Both of these men have done a lot for chess over the years we should all be thankful for having them!!

Jeff Bezos could sponsor large prize events in exchange for Amazon ads in online coverage.

Its a shame that billionaires are needed to make these events happen.  They are not self sufficient.  Maybe if betting was allowed it would be a way to make them profitable. 

But then the problem would be players betting against themselves and throwing games...

i just know now chess is not a popular game in formal events,on the contrary chess is played by ordinary people all over the world

You simply can't make a lot of money from something complicated and brain-requiring. For example Gregory Perelman solved the Millennium Problem (!) and could earn only a million $ (but he refused the money for personal reasons). And it's just ridiculous in the modern world that a retarded singer who sings songs like:

Girls, girls, girls!

Love, love, love!

Shoot, shoot, shoot!

Money, money, money!

Yeah, yeah, yeah!

- will earn millions or even billions from it; while somebody who does intellectual job earns miserable amount of money. That's a huge problem and I can't see the solution.

That's just one of the basic features of life on this planet. The most worthless is celebrated while anything intelligent is mocked.

I think you are on to something.  If poker can be profitable for ESPN, and attract sponsors and viewers, there should be a similar formula that could work for chess.  

It is capitalism.  The only requirement for making money is to figure out how to get money from people.  Value to society has nothing to do with it.  You can get rich selling a pet rock, and struggle through life designing bridges. 

That is bad and it is good.  The good is that there is hope that anyone can be rich.  Just figure out how you can get people to part with their money.  

Are chess player rich?

I bet Magnus has made some good money on endorsements.  And I wonder what Red Bull pays Naka. Fabi probably has no big financial deals going on because he has no appeal.  But just like other sports, sometimes the endorsements can be more lucrative than the income from the sport itself.  

(Sorry , I didn't mean to call chess a sport!)

Top GM's are rich (not millionaires but earn a lot of $) but I can't say that regular GM's earn good money. That's a huge difference between top GM's and below ones. The pie in chess is really small and only high league GM's earn enough money for a living by playing. Robert Fischer talked about that in one of his interviews. I think FIDE has to do something about it.

Watching a tournament is not entertaining, however playing blitz is so platforms like chess.com and li.chess earn thru ads and sponsorships. In order to elevate the playing level of the masses lessons should be free or at least earned thru a series of tournaments which could be addicting in themselves...