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Dark Knight / Le Chevalier Noir
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there some rich guy with a company called Eggon or Agon who paid FIDE some $2 million for the right to stage the World Championships. What was that all about?
The Title Match – why is there no single bid to host it? There are several reasons:
1. Such a costly event is not attractive as a commercial investment. Look at the chess history. Look at the recent matches:
Anand-Carlsen in Chennai, conducted under the patronage and actually under a huge picture of Ms J. Jayalalithaa, Honorable Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu (chess is a royal game, remember? Can you imagine such a huge picture of an organizer/sponsor in the West?), and the match Anand – Gefand, that was financed by Mr. Filatov, a billionaire and Gelfand’s good friend? And what about Anand – Topalov, financed by Bulgarian government? It is like that, and it is very unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
You may recall how difficult it was for Kasparov to find the money for his own matches: at the end of the day, the match with Anand in 1995 saw one of the lowest (if not THE lowest) prize funds in modern times, the match with Shirov did not materialize at all, and it took five years (the biggest break between the matches since the WWII, if we don’t count Fischer’s forfeit in 1975) till the money was found for Kasparov-Kramnik.
Let me remind you, that were the days when nobody was talking about global crisis, and Kasparov was a great charismatic champion… It is just for a simple fact: the event is not attractive for commercial sponsors. Carlsen met with Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg, it was in the news everywhere, but we don’t hear about Microsoft or Facebook being interested to sponsor a title match.
Even such a rich country as Norway is not ready to host it.
FIDE has also further limited the options by keeping to pretend to become an Olympic sport one day (which will never happen of course). Hence the tobacco companies (like Dannemann, that sponsored Kramnik-Leko 2004), betting companies (like Unibet, that sponsors Stavanger this year), and many others are out of question. That actually rules out a rather promising part of the market – the companies, that constantly look for some global advertisement.
2. Now, who is guilty? Some say, it is purely Kirsan’s fault. He meets with Hussein-Qadaffi-Assad-aliens…what serious company would like to deal with such a president? Now, that’s true. But only partly true.
Why don’t we hear about serious transnational companies being involved in US chess or some Western countries, which has nothing to do with Kirsan and Co?
Why does Intel’s experience in 1994-1995 still remain as a single example of its kind?
Whereas the place like Khanty-Mansiysk, that was hardly familiar to anyone of us before the World Cup 2005, has provided a budget over 40 Million USD for the chess activities in last decade.
Of course, I know, everyone would have preferred to have a chess Mecca in UK or Switzerland. But it only works there, when the event is sponsored by a wealthy chess Maecenas (London Chess Classic) or foreign company, that once again comes from Russia or Azerbaijan (Candidates in London, GP in London, Zug and Geneva, Zurich supertournaments…).
And, please, don’t think it is only about Russian/Azeri nouveau riches – Mr. Sinquefield in US, Mr. Grenke in Germany…
Well, that’s how it works.
Top chess and democracy don’t match well. For good or bad.
The best Olympiads of the modern times were Dubai and Khanty-Mansiysk. And among the worst ones – Torino and Dresden.
Much beloved Wijk-an-Zee tournament is under severe crisis for several years now, whereas the debut Shamkir tournament was one of the most impressive chess events ever…
3.Now, back to the pending match. First of all, the time for potential bidder was very limited, and indeed FIDE should have thought about it.
One can’t rely on assumptions like: “Aronian or Kramnik will win the Candidates, and then Armenia or Russia will easily find the money”.
It is likely to work, but you must have some plan B.
There was no such a plan, and now some hard decisions have to be taken.
Finally, back to chess as a product. We can have empiric evidence to this statement: let’s try and stage one global event using pay per view system. That will provide you with much more information, than all the polls, where the flattering results of 605 million people playing chess worldwide appear. Let’s see what the reality is, even if it is harsh. Only then we can build some strategy in order to improve the “product”.
Last, but not least, with all the politics involved and justified criticism – let’s not forget, that it is our responsibility to move our beloved game ahead, and refrain from ruining its future for sake of political gain.
FIDE has noticed several coordinated and politically motivated articles on certain websites, spreading false rumours and devaluating FIDE’s efforts in securing funds for the World Championship Cycle.
FIDE would like to remind to certain “chess journalists” who create false impressions that, only in the last 4 years, FIDE has secured and delivered more than 10 million USD in prize funds for its world championship cycles, in addition to all organising costs.
Obviously the sponsors of these events had access to Google and still they were able to provide such funds to FIDE under the presidency of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Today’s critics of FIDE fail to mention that no other President, fund raiser or chess association has ever brought similar amounts of combined sponsorship to professional chess.
We assure them that, despite their negative campaign undermining FIDE’s negotation position, FIDE will deliver again as it has done, over and over again, in the last 20 years.
It is a sad coincidence that the bidding procedure and preparations for the next World Championship Match have fallen in the same time with the negative campaign of chess politicians in certain countries.
FIDE continues to work for the sake of world chess and not for the short-term political agenda of those opposing Kirsan Ilyumzhinov in the upcoming FIDE elections.
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