Quote:
Originally Posted by Dire
If chess ever hit the mainstream olympics, it would be the best thing ever for chess players world wide. The amount of money/sponsorships coming into the game would multiply exponentially.
This is something I see posted a lot and I'm not so sure about it. By far the biggest problem is that chess is a horrible spectator sport. Even with good commentators, you need a fairly significant amount of previously acquired knowledge to appreciate what goes on. Watching the physical act of someone moving a small piece of wood is not compelling at all. Then the games last for
hours. Finally, for knowledgeable fans, there is little benefit to watching the game live vs replaying the game post-mortem. The suspense is higher, but with good annotations you appreciate the beauty of the game just as much, learn just as much and spend 1/4 of the time.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dire
I think the next step needed in chess is to get rid of big prize class section tournaments. These aren't much more than a reward for sandbagging. Much more effective would be modest prizes for exceptional performance (relative to expectation) in open events. It just seems stupid and far from professional that at alot of the big tournaments, some unknown U1400/U1600/U1800 player gets to take down nearly as much as a world class GM who manages to take down the open.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bigpooch
Yes, it's ridiculous to reward "relatively big" cash prizes to class players.
OTOH, it's simply "marketing" to get enough entries to pay for costs and
bigger prizes near the top.
These sentiments make very little sense to me. Class players pay for the events and in most large tournaments play in their own sections. Why shouldn't they get prizes ~proportionate to their contribution the prize pool. Actually it's already disproportionately in favor of the top section since titled players almost always receive free or reduced entry fees. If there were a significant 3rd party source of revenue, then I'd completely agree that the top section should get the bulk of that money, but this isn't often the case.
Under the current conditions (small corporate sponsorship) the huge majority of the money top players make from chess is dependent on the popularity of chess. Whatever they make in tournaments + fees for teaching, writing books or creating videos are all highly dependent on popularity. Sadly, a decrease in the prize fund for lower sections could increase individual tournament winners' take in the short term, but would undoubtedly (over time) yield lower revenues for these players by hurting weaker player participation.
The problems with this are obvious, though. Sandbagging as Dire mentioned is a problem at the highest $ tournaments. Even more of a problem is cheating. The high dollar tournament TDs are finding ways to combat these problems so I hope they don't balloon.