somehow, they convinced wholesalechess.com to support them (pay) for the concept along the way.
NOT true :) they were just early VERY MINOR sponsors (less than 4 figures kinda sponsors). financial support came from your's truly and jay and igor's willingness to forego salaries :)
go to www.archive.org to see the old chess.com!
Just curious who owned chess.com before. Strangely enough I don't recall ever visiting the site before even though I've been into chess almost a decade now. Also curious how much it's original owner sold it for (though I'm not necessarily expecting an answer on that one).