Comment by gosub100
11 days ago
I think the household names are perfectly able to start their own league and deprecate FIDE. Maybe they are already? This is a situation where the org needs the players more than the players need the org.
I think it was F1 auto racing that recently (10 or so) years ago went through a revolution that changed the rules (for fans, in that case) that dramatically increased the viewership of the sport, mainly because the previous owner was so out of touch with the times.
This is an incredibly ironic comment. "Freestyle" chess was an attempt to do exactly this with Magnus's support, and it failed to secure funding after its initial run. This event is them running back to FIDE in shambles to salvage their tour. Kasparov attempted something similar in the 90s, making his own world championship title, and similarly failed horribly.
The stability of a 100+ year old international organization that's led by serious politicians with connections in every major country is hard to contend with. FIDE's current president was Russia's Deputy Prime Minister for 6 years.
But notice they changed the game AND started a league. I'm suggesting they ignore fide, start a new league based on vanilla chess, and try to get sponsors and modernized it. Relative to how many people love following the drama, it should be cheap to start a league compared to racecars or even bike racing. There's only travel, lodging and broadcasting as expenses.