gentle reader, considering the popularity of chess, is it not astounding that the prizes for winning are so measly as to beg belief? yes you may argue that the top players are making a living, however, after reading an Interview with GM Nakamura, he stated that the life, for the majority of even Gms are threadbare, traveling from one city to another, entering tournaments with little recompense. even at the congress level, one of the contributors to the forum posted a PDF file for entry, its was £28 pounds sterling to enter, with a top prize of only £100 pounds, is it not astonishing! this would hardly pay for a round of drinks after the match, even in the event of victory! yes it may be argued that there are expenses, hiring of halls, arbitrators fees, etc etc, but regardless it does seem so relatively small. why should this be the case? i myself have never attended a chess tournament, being relatively new to the royal game, but can any one explain why this should be the case? where does all the dosh go?
As popular as chess is, unfortunately it's not all that popular with sources that can bankroll big pots of prize money. Ever wonder why the prize amounts in golf tournaments are so huge? It's not because of large entry fees paid by the players. Golf governing organizations have of obtained corporate sponsorships, lucrative TV contracts, and donations from wealthy patrons among other sources of revenue. If the chess organizations around the world can ever tap into some of those ideas (exclude TV. Nobody's going to watch much televized chess.), maybe there'd be chess tournaments with million dollar first prizes.
As an amateur player, its not worth entering a tournament to hope to win money. I have just been hammered on the rhp blitz thing and there is no way i can enter a tournament paying big entry fees when you cannot even get your entry fee back and will get the living daylights hammered out of you.
It's not just at the GM level that prize money is pitiful. It's at all levels. For me to play in a local weekend tournament here, the entry fee is $50 on top of the national chess federation annual fee of $47. Then there is about 50 km of travelling each way, amounting to about 200 km which is about 20 litres of gas costing around $20 which includes the cost of parking. Of course there is at least 4 meals to buy too. So I'm laying out around $150 to play in a tournament with a 1st place winning prize of only $200. It's just not worth it, which is why I no longer play in tournaments.
Originally posted by dkurthyes i did wonder why the prize amount in golf was so huge? for it must be the most dismal sport imaginable, that and cricket, nor do i see why chess cannot be as equally marketable, for example snooker is a relatively slow sport, very dull to watch, if they had some format with chess, you know, im not talking gogo dancers and cheer leaders or Alexandra Kostinuek in a swim suit, but some Gms with personalities, like Seriwan or Korchnoi, explaining what was happening at the board to fill in the spaces between moves, perhaps a statistic expert, some dude with a lap top and Fritz 10, a database expert, who could give some historical or cultural details to the game under way, some precedent to the game, you know, going to different boards to see what was happening, tales of the city, man, you could do such much with it, better than watching flipping golf and cricket anyday and an education besides.
As popular as chess is, unfortunately it's not all that popular with sources that can bankroll big pots of prize money. Ever wonder why the prize amounts in golf tournaments are so huge? It's not because of large entry fees paid by the players. Golf governing organizations have of obtained corporate sponsorships, lucrative TV contracts, and donations from ...[text shortened]... much televized chess.), maybe there'd be chess tournaments with million dollar first prizes.
The bottom line is that chess is not a spectator sport.
Sponsors need spectators(whether at the venue or watching on TV) to get a return on any money invested in a sporting event. The more spectators, the bigger the prize money.
Even my local amateur football team get a few hundred people turning up for their games. I’d be surprised if even a chess World Championship match has that many in attendance.
There's other ways to make money than winning tournaments. Tom Dwan, one of the best poker players in the world, once bet $50k that he could beat a GM in a best of 3 game as long as the GM started down a rook. His friend David Benefield (also a poker pro) promptly took the bet and paid an IM $5000 to play Dwan, with the rook handicap. Of course the IM won the first two games easily. Not a bad job if you can get it.