Celebrity Chess

They have celebrity poker, and Dancing With the Stars, etc. How come some cable channel hasn't come up with the idea of Celebrity Chess? There are many out there who do play (I heard Madonna, Sting, Will Smith, Anthony Hopkins, Bono, Arnold Schwarznegger, are all big chess fanantics. They could do a 1/2 Hour or an hour show. Now I may be biased because I love chess, but don't you think this would be ratings goldmine (not to mention great publicity for chess)?

Ratings Goldmine? I think you might overestimate the appeal Chess has to the majority. Pictures of Genital Warts would probably get higher ratings than live chess.

Lol. Most unfortunatly, you are dead right. Very few people would watch it, the T.V guys know this and thus they will not bother to show it

Even with big name celebrities?

with big names mean big $$$ and who is gonna do that ?

jim Norton from opie and anthony plays

Because watching peoples play chess is boring.

with today technology you can make it more interesting, before in England Snooker was boring to watch because our tv was in black and white! lol but then when colour came out 'Pot Black' was a good show to watch.

I don't think it would be boring. I remember how exciting it was watching Fischer -Spassky in '72, & everyone was watchng. Of course we're watching celbrities, but don't you think people would watch Madonna vs. Schwartnegger? Ben Affleck vs. Will Smith. These celebrities are very addicted to chess anyway, and they could do for their favorite charities. I'd have to think they would be interested. I'm not talking about network TV, but a cable station would be interested, maybe even the Discovery channel.

Hi Painterroy, here is another forum about 'chess on tv' we had a interesting discussion there, with celebrity hmm interesting maybe for a short term is possible. 

might be fun, there have been worse things on TV *cough* pimp my ride

they actually had some chess games on espn. but as usual they talked to much and didn't allow the viewer much time to look at the board. i have not seen it in awhile.

I agree with you lastwarrior2010 I also have seen worse things on tv that one of the reason why I don't watch tv anymore. Even the news is pathetic nowdays.

In the 1970's Bobby(Mac The Knife) Darrin had a variety show with a segment in which he would try to solve a chess problem.  Network television!  But Bobby died and chess declined when Fischer stopped playing after 1972.

also there was a tv show in England, what was is called ? and how long did last for ?

There is some surprising talent in the non-chess world. Witness this devestating light-squared assault by the 1989 Wimbledon Champion:

:-/ Note how Becker recklessly ignores many of the established precepts of chess in order to generate an attack. No, celebrity chess is a dead end I'm afraid, as non players can't really play.

ED.

 Do you envision "Celebrity Genital Warts"?  "STDing With The Stars"  "American Idol Without Penicillin" 

Ya ya I am the chessminator!!

You gave me a great idea! "American Chess Idol". You strt out with 12 chess players from around the country. Of course at first there are at least 4 who are teribble chess players. Each week each one plays a ten minute game, at the end of which Simon Cowell (or the Chess world's equivilent, is there a relly nasty Chess grandmaster out there?) would berate them on their stupid moves they made. At the end of the series, the winner would get to play in a qualifying tournament with much publicity (even tho their FIDE rating might only be 1600), much to the dismay of real talented players who deserve to be there instead. Ok, I guess most of us have seen through my slightly veiled sarcasm on the state of the music business right now :)

http://www.chessgames.com/perl/chessgame?gid=1282198

woody harrelson drew with garry kasparov ... in a consultation match (which i guess means he had help, but still ... he must have had good help)