More Business - less Chess

[Ian Murray]

Outside Australia, people have no clue what AFL is....and are rather entertained that it is called football over here.

International Broadcast Partners

I recall watching the 2015 grand final in Kenya, on EuroSport 2 with live commentary in French

[MichaelBaron]

International Broadcast Partners

I recall watching the 2015 grand final in Kenya, on EuroSport 2 with live commentary in French

There is nothing you can not watch these days but how many people watching/following in Kenya can you seriously compare with soccer? Very few - and mostly expats.

[Kerry Corker]

There is nothing you can not watch these days but how many people watching/following in Kenya can you seriously compare with soccer? Very few - and mostly expats.

You guys are getting a bit off point.

I was trying to say that a very little local, not world, sport like AFLW "May" be going fully paid in 2023. If not 2023, then maybe 24 or 25.

They are determined.

And a huge world wide money making machine like chess is nowhere near even paying one person full time for admin or playing in the whole of Australia.

One female cricketer had her jaw broken the other day, and that was just in the nets. If only we could get half their enthusiasm.

We can't even be bothered to name our teams. The states can't even be bothered having teams, let alone naming them.

Why bother?

While we are debating the crowd numbers of expats watching AFL in Kenya -

VR Chess no longer needs toggles, or gloves. Now they use something called "hand tracker".
This is going to make current online numbers quadruple - at least.

Check out VR Chess Club on Youtube.

We are going to be left behind again. - Maybe we are getting left behind on purpose - Nature in its infinite wisdom etc.

The Kenyan expats watching AFL with French subtitles can look after themselves.

We need new ideas from you guys to extract us from this "Unplumbed Torpor".
With thanks to Kenny Barker.

[Desmond]

Yes, I could have made myself more clear.
I meant that the AFLW showcase of players, the ones who get on tv with viewers is 420 this year and growing to 540 next year.
I don't think you can watch anymore of the females on tv than about 420 this year.

...

How many GMs WGMs IMs WIMs FMs etc does chess have? Probably in the thousands. Is anyone watching? No

According to wiki , there's over 1,000 grandmasters, of which 39 are women. Not sure how close those figures are, but let's say they're reasonable for a rough order of magnitude estimate.

If you want to broadcast 400-500 women players, what ratings are the bottom end of that going to have? More the point, if you're going to find that number of women players in Australia, what rating are the bottom players going to have? I do quite enjoy following and watching top level chess, but I'm afraid I would have 0 interest in following the 500th female player in Australia take on the 499th. Sorry about that.

It's not just chess, either. What interest would I have to watch tennis between 500th in the world players? Not much at all. Not when I can watch players in the top 10.

With regards to comparison with AFLW. The enormous benefit they had was the fact that AFL (men) already was established. It was pretty easy (relatively speaking) to tack on an extra competition, rather than to create a product from nothing. Also the massive grassroots base of fans, as I already said. Show me 120,000 families prepared to pay to put their kids in chess on the weekend, and I'll show you 120,000 families who might watch it on tv (or go to a game).