Why Chess Not Major Like Others Professional Sports

well see if you can get that up and running please we need chess on tv, someone need to contact erick and see if he can get going with some of the top players on here for real thats a nice idea, lets put in the making

what they said about that ya dig

 im afraid not many people believe it is the best sport in the world (I certainly dont), and it would also be awfully slow to watch...

you a hater clown

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ESPN Chess vs. ESPN Poker -- Pros and Cons

Poker Pro:  Has (had?) a large following in the US

Poker Con:  Might have been a fad

Poker Con:  Doesn't have much of a following internationally (I don't think)

Chess Con:  Doesn't have a huge following in the US

Chess Pro:  Has a decent following internationally

Poker Con:  You should really feel like a loser if you watch poker on tv

Chess Pro:  You can pretend you're an intellectual if you watch chess on tv (even if you hardly play chess)

Poker Pro:  Can get exciting really quickly (especially if ESPN edits out the boring parts and they're playing for high stakes)

Chess Con:  Anything longer than 25 10 is just too likely to get boring (for most people)

Chess Pro:  I guess good commentators could even make longer games interesting (like, if it's a really boring position, they could go back to the opening and explain some of the ideas there)

Chess Pro:  If you don't show it live, you could only show really exciting games and you don't have to worry about long time controls

Chess Con:  But I WANT to see it live!  Kramnik - Anand would have been awesome!  'Course then you have long time controls and draws and I don't even know anyone personally who cared about that match

Chess Pro:  National rivalry!  (Kamsky - Tapalov)

Feel free to add to this list.  If you're really interested I guess you could ask random strangers if they'd rather watch Poker or Chess on ESPN if they were, like, really bored one afternoon.

The killer for chess on TV is not so much that it's boring, it's that chess is complicated. Look at poker on TV. Do they show seven stud, or five draw? No, they show texas hold'em, because hold'em is a much simpler game. If TV can't even handle seven card stud, how do you think it's going to manage chess?

Televised blitz games would work, but not anything longer than that unless it was filled with a lot of commentary and hot babes.

 speak english

Well, it would be because unlike most other sports, Chess would be quite boring for the major percentage of the populus. Therefore, to effectively earn money, television programs would refrain from anything that would not get viewers.

long game can be edit to suit whatever the studio like along with the commertary will be good

there have been an interesting discussion on this-Chess on Television

ESPN tried this. let's just say it was not well received :)

btw who is ESPN ?

This seems to be a hard lesson

Chess is boring to watch. Moves may take at least 10 minutes, and nothing is physically happening

Try sitting down and watching two people move pieces on a checkered board for two hours. Now try to take that to a major cable network. I don't watch television much, but I know that watching chess would not be an incentive to turn on my sad dusty friend

Thank you LinwoodMike, we have them here too through Foxtel. Is look like we are on the wrong channel here for chess, maybe through some kind of discovery/education channels ?

 Yes is maybe boring but if you can edit it to speed it up and add it with commetary is would be better

I realize nobody will read this, because I'm on page 3, but chess isn't anything close to a sport.  To be a sport you need physical ability to be an aspect of the game, which moving the pieces does not count.  To call it a "mind" sport is to insult real sports more than putt putt golf does.  If chess is a sport... any kind of sport... then so is doing your math homework or checking your mail in the morning (...you might have to make checking your mail a race with your neighbor, but if you do, totally a sport).

I want to quote so many responses to this, but since I can't choose just one, I will not quote any...

In a nutshell:

1. I have my degree in Radio, TV, and Film. A friend and I had the idea for a chess cable network a little less than a year ago. We pursued it. Came up with a proposal and everything.

2. The only way chess would ever be put on TV in this way would be by using a ton of 'variety' programming to attract viewers. This means the big boobs, the 'reality' shows like "Who wants to date a chess nerd?" and so on. I'm not kidding. That is the only way an all-chess network could possibly beg for viewers.

3. I do not want to see that happen to my beloved game.

I used to be an avid pro sports fan - MLB, NFL, NBA, etc. I'm not anymore because each of those has been turned into a business enterprise. The point is to make money. You all may not believe this, but there was a time when professional sports were about the games being played... Not the revenue.

If the media can ruin sports, it can ruin chess. So I say: KEEP CHESS OFF TV!!!

Besides, there is truly no market for it here in the U.S. We all here at the site find it great fun to watch talented chess players demonstrate their craft, but most people find it very boring. That's a fact. No ratings. No ad revenue. No profits. No network. Period.

And yes, ESPN had chess on TV during the mid-to-late 80's and maybe into the early 90's. I remember watching. It bombed miserably amongst the general public... GM commentators, interviews, and all.

It's just not something anyone is going to take a chance on. Even if the cheesy reality shows and crap are included, there is no guarantee of any significant viewership, and therefore no opportunity to make money. Which is what TV is all about.

I'm no expert, but I know what I know.

People watch golf on TV-why not chess?  It would require commentary, and one of two other things:  either coverage of multiple simultaneous games (like in golf, where different golfers may be playing different holes of the Masters or the Players, but this doesn't stop the TV crews from following all of them), or condensed coverage, where a game is pre-recorded so that much of the time between moves is edited out (leaving enough for commentators to do their thing).

There's even a cable channel devoted to Golf (Golf Channel), why not Chess Channel?  The strong membership numbers of this website suggest that it would be possible, although it would take worldwide promotion as there might not be enough chess fans and avid chess players in the U.S. alone.  Many different sports that are televised (especially during the Olympics) have similar problems to chess (time between the action, etc.), and certain techniques have been used to deal with this:  pre-recorded interviews with competitors, documentaries that deal with the history of the competitors and the competition, the location, etc.  (remember the Olympic coverage last summer, when NBC did some documentary segments about Beijing and certain Chinese tourist attractions?)

I'm thinking that a successful Chess Channel would have to include a wide variety of programming:  games (condensed, with commentary, or following multiple games), event coverage, interviews with masters, chess lessons (like the video lessons made available by Chess.com, which are long enough to make for a half-hour program when you figure in time for commercial breaks before and after the lesson), snippets of cultural, geographical, and historical information, etc.

I am sorry to disagree with you. Chess today is a recognized sport of the International Olympic Committee.

It has been recognized as a sport for a long while now.

What are board games? Monopoly, Clue and that sort are board games. Chess on the other hand implies competition, training, stamina, physical preparation.

Did you know that you can loose as much as 500 grams on a single game?

Saying that Chess is not a sport is like saying that Car Racing is not a sport because all the work is done by the car, or horse ridding, due to the fact that most of the work is done by the horse. But both are considered sports because they require physical and mental preparedness from those that practice it.

So, in conclussion, Chess is in fact a sport.