Here comes the Tsunami

Hi everyone,

BBC TV are starting a chess show tonight called End Game. They just pushed it on Breakfast TV and I don't know how anyone else feels about this, but they talked about it like it was boxing. How long will it be before it's just about money, like football? They also called chess a 'Sport' not 'A game.' (a discussion that's active on this forum) I can already here the advertising people rubbing their hands together. The more they label it a sport, the easier it will be to slot between athletics and tennis. I thought of a Pink Floyd lyric, "we're so happy we can hardly count." 

Cynical? Maybe, and I'm sure it will be good for new people to learn about chess, but this news slot featured two of the players on the show, (who looked like they should hosting game shows) who described their playing style as if they were in a mainstream sport. I'm biased here as I avoid the opiates of the masses and like the sub culture of chess. 

I think that chess might be entering a new era as the show also described it as the fasted growing sport in the world. Maybe it will be like the Fischer/Spassky surge of 1972. 

I worry for the image of the game and the kind of people behind the scenes in the UK and the new players who will dive head first into chess thinking it is the place to be seen rather than getting involved on a study level, then getting hammered at chess clubs because they've been playing for a week, then getting disillusioned and abandoning a complex and exciting mental exercise. 

Maybe I'm getting old.

Opinions welcome...