Norway’s Magnus Carlsen, left, beat India’s Vishwanathan Anand in the 2014 World Chess Championship in Sochi, Russia. PHOTO: YEVGENY REUTOV/EUROPEAN PRESSPHOTO AGENCY
The finest chess players in the world are headed for New York.
The World Chess Championship, a semiregular one-on-one match administered by the World Chess Federation (FIDE), will be played in New York City this November, The Wall Street Journal learned Monday, marking the first time in 21 years that the world’s greatest chess player will be crowned on American soil.
The reigning world champion, Magnus Carlsen, who defended his title against India’s Viswanathan Anand in the World Chess Championship of 2014, will be on hand to play a yet-to-be-determined challenger in a 12-round match from Nov. 10 to Nov. 30 at a New York location that also has yet to be finalized.
Agon, the commercial partner of FIDE and the organizer of the World Chess Championship, had previously said that it wanted to hold the 2016 World Chess Championship in the U.S., with Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York emerging as preferred sites.
Ilya Merenzon, CEO of Agon, said Monday that he is in discussions with a number of New York venues, including the World Trade Center and other Manhattan locations. In 1995, Garry Kasparov beat Anand in a 20-game match on the 107th floor of the World Trade Center—the last time the chess world championship was staged in the U.S.
‘“Ideally, we’d like to take over retail spaces along Broadway—we have about five or six locations on the shortlist—so people can walk in and see [the match] through glass.’
“Ideally,” Merenzon said, “we’d like to take over retail spaces along Broadway—we have about five or six locations on the shortlist—so people can walk in and see [the match] through glass.”
First things first, FIDE must find the champion a challenger. In a little over a week, eight of the world’s best players not named Carlsen will convene in Moscow to compete in the Candidates Tournament, a double round robin bracket that will produce an opponent for the 25-year-old Norwegian.
Among the eight suitors are U.S. grandmasters Fabiano Caruana and Hikaru Nakamura. Should either emerge victorious in Moscow, he would have the chance to become the first American world champion since Bobby Fisher held the crown from 1972 to 1975.
In its presentation, November’s World Chess Championship match will likely echo the Candidates Tournament, which kicks off near the Kremlin on March 10. Merenzon said Agon has designed and built a 20,000-square-foot space for the event that includes a VIP lounge, press center and TV studio—all in an effort to woo more spectators to the sport.
“We’re focusing 99% of our efforts on online viewership,” said Merenzon, adding that the online broadcasts will feature a variety of camera angles, an educational component to help explain the action, and two commentators analyzing the match live, which has become commonplace.
Reigning champion Magnus Carlsen will be in New York in November to take on a soon-to-be-determined challenger for the world title. PHOTO:KOEN VAN WEEL/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES
“It will look more like a morning news broadcast,” Merenzon said.
The match will also be broadcast on Agon’s website, WorldChess.com. According to the site, the championship will comprise 12 rounds with a prize of “at least $1 million” going to the winner.
Part of the challenge, and what has hindered chess championships from reaching the mainstream in the past, is a lack of a familiar sponsorship partners—or essentially, money. Though Merenzon said that some of the tournament’s sponsors this year had been confirmed by the organizers, he declined to identify them.
Finding a major U.S. sponsor isn’t out of the question, but there is little precedent for it. Carlsen, the second-youngest champion in history (Kasparov was the youngest, at age 22 in 1985) could change that. He has mainly managed his own image, partnering with several companies in his native Norway, as well as consumer labels such as the Dutch fashion retailer G-Star Raw and German car-maker Porsche. But it’s clear that FIDE and Agon envision Carlsen as a global celebrity.
“Magnus really wants to be associated with American companies,” said Merenzon. “We are completely in sync with Magnus’s manager on this.”
First he’ll have to retain his title in New York come November. One wild card for any potential U.S. partner, not to mention for WCC spectators, is the chance to see an American vie for the title. Both Nakamura, the sixth-ranked player in the world, and Caruana, the world No. 3, have called New York home at one time or another. Caruana is currently Visiting Grandmaster at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City.
“They have a very good chance of being one of the two that wins,” said Dylan McClain, the editor of WorldChess.com. “Caruana grew up in Brooklyn, where he learned to play chess. He has something in his game that he can go at Carlsen.”
By Jonathan Zalman, the Wall Street Journal, February 29, 2016
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