Do chess events make money?

It actually is entertaining if you have enough skill to understand what's going on. May be if games could be explained by somebody with a great experience and the explanation will be made for beginners it of course will be more fun to watch for everybody.

The question is where did that money come from so that you could be paid?  

Hey, ABBA and Elvis weren't retarded!  Why not have a TV show called "Pop Stars Play Chess", where you take 8 pop stars and train them up with their own chess coaches, then they take part in a knockout tournament using the same format as "The Master Game" (UK TV show from the '70s/'80s where the players talked through their moves)? Good game, good game!

The biggest obstacle to top chess players making big money is that they have no "intellectual ownership" to their work.  A songwriter gets royalties, a novelist is protected by copywright laws, columnists are protected by plagiarism statutes.  Even pro athletes contractually "sell" their ownerships to franchises who then have ownership of telecasts or replays.  But the top chessplayers create and, instaneously, their games become part of the public domain.

There is no way getting around this.  Everytime there has been any movement to protect a GM's intellectual property, there has always been a huge outrage by the chess consumer.  Let's face it, we are spoiled and we are cheap!  We want everything for free and we want it in real time.  

I can't imagine how that would work. Keep moves to a game secret except to people who paid for it?  Even that wouldn't work in this day and age.  As soon as one person had the information it would be all over the internet.  

I love the idea. Celebrities could be matched with strong GMs and trained for a month. Would Toby of "Pawn Sacrifice" be top performer in Celebrity Chess Open?

I think chess just needs a better sponsorship. Like boxing does for example. What can one sell except of equipment related to boxing? So may be chess needs a better image in society. I mean previous champions used to advertise chess a lot, let's say, Fischer or Kasparov. But nowadays I can barely see Kramnik or Anand, or Carlsen on newspapers or on the internet (or TV) except times when the World Championship is going to be held.

That's not going to happen. Even big events like the world championship get responses like "who", "what", and "they have a world championship for that?" It's in no way like boxing, or any sport. You dont go into a restaurant or bar and see chess on the TV. Or if you did, the bar owner would quickly find himself out of business. I think the fundamental problem is some people think chess is way more important than it really is. It's just a game, for enjoyment. It's not popular to the point where any serious effort is going to be made to popularize it. It's just not worth it.

Not kept secret, but just that no game could be published on the internet or in chess books without paying a royalty.  For example, in the recent Carlson-Caruana match, if chess.com or chessbase wanted to show the games, they would have to pay a royalty to the sponsors of the match (who would have presumably paid Magnus/Fabi handsomely for the rights.)

Everytime I sang "Happy Birthday" at my daughter's birthdays I didn't have to pay a royalty... but if that song is played on the Conan OBrien Show when it is a guest's birthday, THEY have to send a check to ASCAP or whoever collects songwriting royalties.'

And, of course that would not work, because most chessplayers are among the cheapest people on the planet.

Yeah, with this approach to the chess it's no wonder that we have such ugly games at the top level. So ugly pays, ugly games - seems quite fair. I can't really see dedicated players nowadays like Fischer or Alekhine who made masterpieces in almost every third game. Enjoy this ugliness.

That's a good point!  If top chess players could earn great money from royalties, they would play less risk-averse chess, eschew draws and go for the big bucks.  Tal's heirs would still be collecting royalties from all the spectacular games he played in his 20's.  Bobby Fischer's daughter would still be earning money everytime his "Game of the Century" was published in a book or put on Youtube.  By contrast, very few chessplayers would be willing to pay (directly or indirectly) for Anish Giri's litany of drawn games.  Even a great champion like Magnus, would not be a top-earner with his style of "I'm gonna make 77 non-committal moves without a big mistake, and wait until my opponent cracks." Players that took big risks would become the preferred challengers in a World Ch match, where the sponsor hoped to regain profit from sale of the match games.  

Or maybe Miley Cyrus vs. Kanye West (The final reckoning)... About royalties for chess games, would short agreed draws be covered by copyright too? Also quick checkmate miniatures - would it then be against the rules to replicate these games?

Thanks for the laugh!

Inject them with what?