Why Does Chess Need To Be A ‘Sport’?

For whatever shortcoming of nature or nurture, I was never a good chess player. But I grew up fascinated by top-level chess – with Kasparov, Karpov and local hero Nigel Short the idols of the day. Never mind that Go is a far more intricate game, or that chess computers can now beat people as a matter of course – top-level chess has always stood out to me as the supreme battle of the human mind, and its proponents the finest brains on the planet.

As I grew up and then moved into a career in traditional sport, I lost touch with the chess scene. So, it was wonderful to be reacquainted with elite chess at the 2018 FIDE Chess World Championships taking place at The College in central London from November 9-28.

The company World Chess is the organiser of the event as the exclusive official partner of FIDE (the international federation) and commercial rights holder to the World Chess Championship cycle. World Chess by Agon Limited is the owner of worldchess.com, the exclusive broadcasting platform for chess.

In terms of presentation, the event, with reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen taking on challenger Fabiano Caruana, came across well. The venue was creatively dressed, with a distinctive look and feel applied consistently, inside and out. There was a respectable offering of merchandise, and diverse ways of following the action, within the aquarium-like arena, or in numerous break-out spaces with expert commentary. The crowd was plentiful and, whilst a bit skewed to middle-aged men, it counted many women as well as younger people and children of both genders.

On the downside, the roster of sponsors seemed esoteric and for an event of this scale lacked the international household brands that you would expect to see at even a middle-ranking sports event.

But is chess a sport? This debate has raged for years, with chess as well as poker and bridge, and more recently eSports, all seeking this tag. Many countries, and the IOC, do indeed classify chess as a sport. Carlsen himself has said that it is ‘definitely a sport’. It has featured at major multi-sport events, notably the Asian Games of 2006 and 2010.

And yet, despite this, chess often misses out on benefits that established sports enjoy. It does not qualify, for example, for Britain’s National Lottery funding, one of the richest sources of government support for sport in the world. It has never appeared at an Olympic Games and was overlooked at the recent Asian Games in Indonesia.

Undoubtedly, Chess has many ‘sport-like’ characteristics. It requires huge stamina at the top levels. Prominent grandmasters have nutritionists and physical exercise regimes to improve their game. They are even tested for doping.

As I sat watching Carlsen and Caruana tough out the ninth consecutive draw of the tournament, I was reminded of a boxing match, and two boxers slugging it out in the final rounds of a bout too close to call. I was gripped, just as I am watching top level boxing, tennis or golf.

But to my way of thinking, chess is not a sport. It does not spring primarily from physical exertion or endeavour. It is a game.

And what is so very wrong with that? I question why the organisations behind chess and other mind games are so desperate to be classed as sport. Is this because they believe that sport has some inherent exalted standing, by comparison to which mere games are inferior?

I doubt this, and believe that the quest for recognition as a sport is really a plea to gain access to the fruits that traditional sports enjoy – public funding, inclusion at the biggest multi-games events on the planet, media exposure and commercial revenues.

You can’t fault the bosses who run chess and other federations for chasing the incentives on offer, and that means vying to be seen as a sport. But isn’t the real challenge to try to rebalance the incentives? Chess is a fantastic game with genuine benefits – mental and social – for its players and spectators. Playing chess can reduce stress, stave off mental illness and tackle the killer affliction of loneliness – all of which reduces health costs.

In this respect, chess deserves public funding. But it should be recognised on its own merits and should not have to package itself as a sport to be entitled to these.

Similarly, chess has huge potential to grow as a spectacle. The Carlsen/Caruana bout was an impressive example of how the game has evolved since my days of following it in the 1980s. But I left the arena thinking too that the game has even more potential to create something fresh for new audiences. It will achieve this, for sure, by borrowing the best parts of the way sports present themselves.

But it must also seek other inspiration – from the theatre, music and the circus  – to create its own unique forms for a unique and wonderful game.

The relationship between sport and development: ‘Agent for wider social change is only going to grow’

The relationship between sport and development is a fascinating one. But let’s be clear on our terms here. The idea that the governing bodies of sports have a duty of ‘sport development’ (that is, to develop the following and practice of their respective sport) is as old as sport itself.

What I think is a much more intriguing question is how sport can be harnessed for the wider purposes of social development – to reduce poverty, increase literacy and end cruelty to children, for example.

Whilst, 20 years ago, this idea was perhaps not new, it was certainly novel. For many fans in the 1990s, sport was more about providing a pleasant distraction from the problems of the world rather than the tool by which such problems might be addressed.

Since then, a myriad of international bodies, including the European Union, United Nations and Commonwealth Secretariat, have brought a whole new focus on the power of sport to tackle global problems.

Sport has generally done well to embrace this, led – predictably – by the Olympic movement.

Thomas Bach, the IOC President, captured this when he said “sport is not just physical activity; it promotes health and helps prevent, or even cure, the diseases of modern civilization.”

These days, it would now be unthinkable for a major international event such as a FIFA World Cup or Olympic Games to take place without a charity partner such as UNICEF.

Looking forward, the role of sport as an agent for wider social change is only going to grow. Increasingly, the extent to which a sports federation or a sporting event can help tackle world problems will become a determining factor in whether it receives funding or hosting rights to begin with.

There is much to salute in this. If sport can help to make the world a better place, what’s not to like? Additionally, the more sport can be seen to help with global issues of development, the stronger its relevance and – ultimately – its future will be. In a world which now offers many other forms of diversion, this matters.

But to my mind, there is a pitfall. I worry that, as it becomes an ever closer bedfellow of development, there is a risk that we might lose track of sport for sport’s sake.

The thrill of watching a sporting contest, the fun of playing in a team and the satisfaction that volunteering in sport brings; these things may not drive any broader social agenda, but all of them have an inherent worth that should not be overlooked.

Let’s keep pushing sport to drive development, but without sacrificing its ability to stand on its own as a worthy and pleasurable part of our lives in its own right.

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The rising tide of new sporting formats should be embraced – not fought against

As I started out in the late 1990s, sport was still pretty much in a solid state.

Sure, the founders of UFC had had the temerity to bring fighters of diverse disciplines together since 1993, and in 1996 we had seen the Clash of the Codes, as rugby union side Bath fought it out against rugby league’s Wigan.

But these were sideshows and the integrity of major sporting formats was not felt to be at risk. Football was football, rugby was rugby and cricket was cricket.

Seismic changes since have altered all that. Satellite TV – and more recently, the internet – have opened up endless new channels and a craving for varied content. Attention spans are shorter as sport finds itself competing more directly with other forms of entertainment.

And, of course, the millennial generation has emerged – impatient, tech-savvy and with a thirst for disruption.

New sporting formats have blossomed. It is hard to believe that the first Twenty20 cricket match was held as recently as 2003, such has been its irresistible rise since. Faster formats in darts, snooker and a myriad of other sports have helped to revive stale audiences.

Rugby 7s, though not new, has exploded in popularity. Major international sports events now vie with each other to be seen to embrace new formats – as the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow did so successfully by trialling a mixed relay triathlon.

More new formats are on the horizon – including fresh forms of disability, beach and digital aspects of sport.

This has certainly not been to everyone’s liking. Purists decry the undermining of traditional sports formats, some dating back to the 19th century. Others feel that the soul of the sports they love has been sold in pursuit of new revenues.

Followers and administrators of certain traditional sports such as boxing fret that new markets will diminish their relevance.

But the huge financial windfall of the recent Floyd Mayweather vs Conor McGregor fight in Las Vegas suggests that the public’s appetite for new formats, some of them outlandish, is here to stay. And I for one welcome it.

New formats bring in new fans and open up new frontiers, ushering in innovation, without having to kill traditional versions of the game. Rugby union and test cricket have not been killed by Rugby 7s and Twenty20, quite the opposite.

Those who strive to preserve sport against all change are like King Canute trying to turn back the tide, and it seems to me to miss two key points. First, sports were never set in stone and have instead existed in a constant state of change.

Secondly, people generally fret about changes – of all kinds – until they have happened, then accept them and forget that they were worried about them in the first place.

Let’s go with the flow – we can’t fight the tide.

Sports stars must retain their mystique amid changing landscape of fan engagement

Adam Paker continues to reflect on 20 years in the sports industry, this time focusing on the changing game of fan engagement

Back in the late 1990s, the internet revolution was spreading quickly to the realm of sport. Much of the focus was on the internet’s ability to bring you news and results faster than ever before, as ESPN.com, cricinfo and a plethora of others showed.

Fansites dedicated to individual icons of the time were starting to appear, but the stars themselves were slow to pick up on the power of the net – David Beckham, for example, did not launch an official website until 2007.

The waves of digital change since then have revolutionised the ways for stars to reach out to their fans, and for fans to engage with the stars.

Any self-respecting sports star of today will have a well-presented and carefully curated presence on Facebook and Instagram.

Most potent of all is Twitter, which gives fans an apparently unhindered connection to their star of choice, and the star a direct access to the hearts and minds of fans, wherever they may live.

It is undeniable that this has changed the relationship between the fan and the sports star profoundly.

But let’s not get carried away. The conventional wisdom is that sports stars have become more approachable to their fans, but I would question this.

In reality, much of the Twitter output of a typical superstar is ghost-written and corporate in flavour – more likely to push a brand of apparel than give fans an insight into the inner life of the star.

And whilst Twitter may look like a direct line to the stars, does anyone believe that, say, Cristiano Ronaldo can respond personally to messages from his 57.3m followers?

Meanwhile, other dynamics – such as galloping salaries for top stars in some sports – serve to make today’s megastars harder for the public to relate to, not easier.

So a gap remains, and I for one think this is no bad thing. The truth is that sport relies on a curious dual relationship by which the top stars seem both approachable and yet superhuman to their fans.

No-one typifies this better than Usain Bolt, who, on the one hand comes across as the kind of laid-back guy you could happily have a drink with, but whose sporting achievements are cast as someone from another galaxy.

I am all in favour of the opportunities that the digital age has brought to make sports stars more approachable to their fans. The smartest athletes with the best agents will leverage this.

But for sport to flourish it is important that its greatest proponents also retain their mystique.

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Nothing is sacred in digital era as sports media rights assume new mantle

1997 saw the start of Sky’s £670 ($870) million Premier League broadcast deal, underscoring the role of media rights as the life-blood and commercial driver of the sports industry.

But the ways to experience live sporting action were limited and dominated by television, either free terrestrial or pay. Mobile telephones were common but still basic – the emblematic 2G devices of the time (typically Nokia or Motorola) could give you scores on the go, but the idea of providing moving images was still a pipe dream.

The internet, fixed at that time with wireless telephony still in development, could provide fixed images but not yet reliable live streamed sporting action.

Fast forward to the present day and, of course, the landscape for sports media rights is dramatically different. In particular, the options for consuming sport have been multiplied beyond recognition by Wi-Fi and smartphone technology, ushering in a wave of new digital channels as an alternative to the dominant distributors of the past.

The consequences have been profound, and not always positive. The digital revolution has made live sports streaming vulnerable to piracy, especially by the young. Shocking research from earlier this year suggested that more than half of people aged 18-24 in the UK watch illegal streams of live sports.

The Empire is striking back – and the Premier League is making legal breakthroughs in cracking down on piracy – but this problem is no more likely to disappear from sport than it is from the music or film industries. The era of ever-increasing media valuations may well be over, putting more pressure on rights holders to drive other revenue streams such as those in-stadia.

The digital era has also shortened attention spans. This is forcing innovation, favouring sports whose content can be broken up into the bite-size chunks that millennials (and others) crave, and leading to profound changes in the format of sports.

READ MORE: EA Sports partners with EFL to become first sponsor of new streaming service iFollow

Nothing is sacred – even the length of football halves could be reviewed if this creates a better media product for the new generation.

Whilst many decry this disruption, I see reasons to be positive. Sport still generates the most compelling of content and, I believe, has huge scope to continue to evolve and create new consumer experiences.

Market entrants such as Facebook, Amazon and Google will bring fresh ideas in the packaging and presenting of sport. I was first made aware of the potential of augmented reality at a now-legendary IOC conference in 2000, but this potential has not yet been realised.

READ MORE: Facebook’s new ‘Watch’ platform set to feature live sports section

Augmented reality and virtual reality could both revolutionise how we experience sport in ways we can only guess at.

It’s been an incredible 20 years of change in the way we consume sports media. The next 20 promise to be just as ground-breaking and, for those who see tech as more than just a threat, every bit as rewarding.

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Doping in sport: why the last 20 years should give us hope in battle against cheats

In the latest of his reflections on 20 years in the sports industry, Adam Paker gets to grips with doping in sport

It would be easy to paint the last 20 years as a story of lost innocence, in which our naïve sense of the Olympian ideals of sport were shattered by doping scandal.

But back in the late 90s, as I was starting out in the industry, we were in fact far from naïve. It had been a decade since one of the real seismic shocks in the history of sports cheats had hit home – the discrediting of the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at the Seoul Games.

We were also not new to the idea of State-sponsored doping. Following German reunification, evidence came to light in 1993 that East Germany had been at it since 1971.

What really changed was our sense of the scale and extent of the problem. Looking back, much has been uncovered about past abuses, such as those of the US Olympic Committee in the 1980s, as published by Sports Illustrated in 2003.

At the same time, the bravery of whistleblowers and investigative journalists has lifted the lid on doping abuses perpetrated by individuals, whole teams such as U.S. Postal Service Pro Cycling Team and then, in 2014, one of the most successful of all sporting nations, Russia.

The revelations have taken a wrecking ball to some of our most cherished icons of sport – Lance Armstrong, Maria Sharapova and Marion Jones to name but three from a long list.

The integrity of whole sports is now under threat and doping has become one of the persistent talking points of major sports events such Le Tour.

We have a sense that more bad news is inevitable and that more athletes, sports, and whole countries will be implicated in doping scandals some time soon.

Despite this seemingly unstoppable torrent of bad news, the last two decades give us hope for sport.

Let’s remind ourselves that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) did not come into existence until 1999, since when it has done a huge amount to raise standards of doping control and to co-ordinate the war on doping.

But more is now needed, including – as I see it – three key ingredients. First, a genuinely zero tolerance approach is required by sports governing bodies when it comes to doping – however unappealing the geopolitical battles this may entail.

Secondly, WADA, currently 50% funded by the IOC, needs to be independent. Finally, more funding – for example, the UK’s anti-doping agency receives only £5.5m from the State, yet with that it is expected to protect the multi-billion pound industry that is British sport.

There is no panacea to doping in sport, but we have learned a great deal about it in the past two decades. We can use this to take the fight to the drugs cheats.  

Sport must not forget its roots as digital revolution takes centre stage in new stadia

The ‘fields of dreams’ where the sports we love are hosted have undergone significant changes during my 20 years in the sector.

The landscape has quite literally been transformed, with unprecedented sums of money ploughed into a slew of sports infrastructure projects, ranging from stunning new venues to massive enhancements to existing ones.

The last 20 years have seen the birth of many of the most iconic of stadia – from the Allianz Arena in Munich to the new Wembley stadium, plus extraordinary baseball and American football venues in New York.

Such changes have also reflected geopolitics, with the BRIC countries and others in the Middle East and former Soviet bloc showing off their new-found confidence through eye-catching and financially eye-popping investments in sports structures.

There is much to celebrate in all of this. New facilities have provided the catalyst for cities to reinvent themselves.

I was lucky enough to work on the Commonwealth Games in 2014, for example, which showcased a modern and vibrant city through new venues such as the SSE Hydro. This has created jobs, as the venues have become sustainable homes for a pipeline of sporting and non-sporting events.

The fan experience is almost unrecognisable. Electronic entry to stadia is quicker, there are often more and better concessions, improved safety and of course, that staple of the stadium experience, more and better toilet facilities.

The digital revolution has also come to the fore, suffusing the experience of attending a live sports event before, during and after.

And yet it has not all been good news. Some older fans feel that the atmosphere in venues has been compromised with the switch from historic old stadia to glistening new ones.

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