World Chess Championship Buzz

The buzz around the upcoming 2016 Carlsen - Karjakin World Championship match is starting to pick up. Since the last report, Chess in Manhattan (August 2016), we had

• 2016-08-30: PhosAgro Announces Sponsorship of the 2016 FIDE World Chess Championship (prnewswire.com)
• 2016-09-02: Strategic partner PhosAgro for 2016 FIDE World Chess Championship (fide.com)

Agreed, that was more of a snoring sound than a buzz, but it got better.

World Chess by Agon presenting new sponsor of World Championship Match in New York (33:41) • 'Published on Sep 12, 2016'

That press conference was held during the recent 2016 Baku Olympiad. For details, see:-

• 2016-09-12: Carlsen vs Karjakin Broadcast To Incorporate Virtual Reality (chess.com; comments)
• 2016-09-15: EG Capital Advisors signs deal with Agon Ltd to become sponsor of FIDE World Chess Championship Match 2016 (prnewswire.com)
• 2016-09-16: World Chess Championship Match 2016 (fide.com)
• 2016-09-16: World Championship 2016 – new broadcast, new sponsors (chessbase.com; comments)

In addition to the usual FIDE/Agon hyperbole -- 'truly historic event', 'the championship last year [2014 Sochi?] attracted more than one billion viewers around the world', 'roughly 600 million people in the world who actively play chess' -- the EG/VR introduction had one glaring inaccuracy:-

We recall that the last time the World Chess Championship played in New York, it was in 1990. (1:55 into the clip)

The 1995 Kasparov - Anand PCA Title Match (New York, IX-X, 1995), is considered by most (all?) experts to have been a far more important World Chess Championship than any of the subsequent FIDE Knockout events, perhaps even more important than all of the knockouts taken together. It coincided with The Start of the Scholastic Boom (chessforallages.blogspot.com; July 2014), a period of U.S. chess growth eclipsed only by the Fischer boom in the 1970s. As for the broadcasting gimmicks, does anyone remember:-

• 2008-04-01: Foidos Chess Broadcast (chessdom.com)
• 2008-08-29: FoidosChess: The match Anand vs. Kramnik as close contact video experience (fide.com)

Headset or not, I'm looking forward to the big show. Game one is scheduled for 11 November. That's a public holiday in many countries.