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In the short run at least, this might hurt FIDE more than Magnus. He's already the biggest brand in global chess by far, at this point becoming successful at th
by t_mann 4y ago
In the short run at least, this might hurt FIDE more than Magnus. He's already the biggest brand in global chess by far, at this point becoming successful at the 'influencer game' (his podcasts, other content like the poker and fantasy football he got into as well, collaborating with other influencers like the - also Norwegian - highly successful former climber Magnus Midtbo,...) might do more for his brand than winning yet another title.
That's assuming that's even his goal, he really just seems to be doing whatever he enjoys. And in the long run, FIDE will also be fine. There will be new talents, and as even Magnus admitted, it's hard to rival the 'official' world champion title in terms of global attention.
- retzkek 4y agoWhat might save FIDE, or at least keep it relevant, is if Ding being in the championship now can do for chess in China what Fischer did for chess in the US, or Anand for India. There's a potential huge market and player base that so far hasn't been very interested in international Chess (xiangqi and go are more popular). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_in_China On the other hand, this may be an inflection point toward online chess and faster time formats taking over for deciding who the "real" chess champion is. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, especially with the battle between chess.com and lichess.org for online mindshare.