Oh and a relatively relevant article from ESPN posted today and on its front page.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=weinreb/080123&lpos=spotlight&lid=tab5pos1
Joe
Should chess be a sport and put on tv?
Sort:
Jan 23, 2008
0
#43
I remember back in 1972, as a dorky, nerdy, geeky 11 year old (not much has changed since!!), I actually watched the Fischer-Spassky match on PBS.
I would watch chess on TV, although I can't see it ever happening.
I think it should be put on TV. I don't think it should be considered a sport though. It is simply a game. A sport requires skill and athleticism, in my opinion.
REW72 the nail on the head - If chess was on tv it wouldn't be any worse than turning to ESPN to see a bunch of people playing Texas Hold'em or Billiards. Now fishing has its own channel - and there is even a channel called Versus that shows nothing but competitive stuff on it so i agreechess really should be on TV, and I think that it should have large events like the World Series of Poker with millions of dollars as a prize puul out our clocks and have some World Series of Chess tourneys I'd do my best to be there
Amnesiac wrote: silentfilmstar13 wrote: Any physical excersises which may be done by some players have the goal of mental acuteness. Only when the goal of these excersizes is primarily honing physical performance can we call it physical training.
Is'nt this a contradiction?
agreed...
on the subject at hand, I think there are more people intersted in chess than you realize. I know I would watch it, I love watching it in real life
no chess is to slow
a lot of people find chess boring. and chess if there's a possibility that chess would be on TV, i think only for reporting the results of tournaments and winners and etc.
and TV shows = money, people bored = no TV rating, program = banned.
I have Live Games from the ICC online site as my screensaver that I found in the Download section.
Whenever I want to see a game of chess, or am just simply bored, I sit back and relax. My only beef is that I cannot seem to find chess within normal time constraints with players above 2100.
I would love to see a Chess Channel somewhere other than the internet. I would not expect overwhelming ratings though.
it should be feasible, but it would probably need to follow on the coattails of individual programming success before its own channel in USA market. Poker has become a very popular time-killer for a lot of entertainment/sports variety channels here. the production cost could be very small as long as tournament directors were to understand that this wasn't a moneybag sponsor coming in.
chess is not too slow for editting. full day poker tournaments are consolidated into 1 hour shows. chess games could be annotated by resident experts who have good television personalities and by the players as well. imagine a chess version of ALton Brown from the food channel "good eats" and "iron chef america". the format would ba a 1-hour program aimed at 800-1000 rated players, with color commentary about players' biography, the tournament. a 10-min tactics lesson on a theme (i.e. good/bad bishops, knight outpost) could occupy one commercial to commercial break. a 10-min conversation interview with a master player would be another good spot.
has an entertaining documentary movie like "wordplay" for crossword puzzles been done for chess?
Jan 24, 2008
0
#51
I've seen a few games of chess on both PBS and ESPN2.
It might be more interesting if they were blitz games, but the downside would be less of a chance to study the positioning and appreciate the moves.
Announcer: "White sets up the rook. Black moves the bishop?? It's a mistake folks! Does, white see this? Yes! The white queen moves and checks! Black counters! White moves in the bishop to check! Another counter by black! White repositions her queen for another check! The black king is now on the run! Another check by white! Check again! Check! Check!! CHECK!!! It's mate! MATE! MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
LOL.
Yes, I do think that chess should be on tv. I am not sure if it would be popular at long time controls though. Personally, I would like to watch a variety of TCs just to give some variety. Blitz chess would probably be more popular than extremely long time controls considering the average time span for programs and such.
Go is played on TV with a camera over the board. Not only that, but they put the games in newspapers (in Japan and China). So why not chess?
well they certainly wouldnt struggle to fill a schedule. Any spare time could be filled with video lectures on specific openings for example, or different end games. If there was nothing on tv, you could just sit and absorb the knowledge, and with sky+ you could even rewind if you didnt get something the first time. 
If all the crap that's on tv nowadays can make it then surely chess would make it no problem. Cant imagine it would be too hard to find people who would want to advertise in the breaks either. Chess suppliers, software manufacturers, specsavers...
If all the crap that's on tv nowadays can make it then surely chess would make it no problem. Cant imagine it would be too hard to find people who would want to advertise in the breaks either. Chess suppliers, software manufacturers, specsavers...
sounds good to me I can switch from golf to chess while eating my white castles and drinkin my beer, bring it on!!!
Anybody who reads these words, ask yourself this question:
Am I wasting my time?
Yes. It should deffinitely be on TV although not many people would watch it.
No. it is not a physical sport, but a mental one yes.
Chess should definitely be on TV. I would watch it.
I think Chess on TV would be great, especially now even more than in the 70's and 80's. Can't you see chess all glammed up for TV now adays? two grandmasters (see we already have the cool titles) step into the studio used for "millionaire" and sit down to do battle. Two overly excited announcers there to analyze every move and to illustrate using their 3-D telestrating game board. Even a "sideline" reporter to tell us "ooo I think blahbity blah has a bead of sweat the pressure is mounting!"
Or even if they did do it Hold em style and had cameras bouncing between multiple games with intense commentary, I think it would be great.
I think the biggest problem wouldn't be marketing it or finding an audience I think It would be hard to convince masters to hop into telvised hyped game like that. Could you imagine Kasparov walking in to strobe lights and a theme song, I dont know. As far as the hold em boom I think part of that is the internet and in turn the huge purse has made people intense about it (competitors and audience alike), until there are big enough purses you aren't going to see huge interest, it would be like watching the world series when johny chan won em, 300 competitors and no one watching the biggest event in the game.
My 2 cents,
Joe