It sounds ridiculous at first since all chess games are free. Actually, it’s not unusual at all. People all the time pay for a better experience. Listening to music is free too. Yet people pay for Spotify.

Since I claim that it is possible, why has no one done it yet? Well, one company, AGON, tried to monetize the watching experience, but not by offering better, by monopolizing it. They purchased the rights to the World Chess Championship cycle (the most-watched chess events) and tried to forbid other broadcasters from streaming the moves, claiming copyrights.

They spent their funds on lawyers to accomplish this instead of spending it on their engineers. As a result, they lost lawsuits and offered a poor viewing experience. As a matter of fact, their website failed regularly.

Since then, no one has tried because no one believed that it was a possibility. That’s why the potential of chess broadcasting has been neglected for far too long. Broadcasting development is stuck in the Chess24 era. Most apps and websites have not been innovative enough to make following games truly enjoyable. What was the latest big innovation in this sphere?

This most neglected area is the source of deteriorating chess tournament conditions. Most chess tournaments lose money. Prize funds haven’t grown in years. While writing this, I checked the biggest open event in the USA, the World Open. The prize fund was $200K in 2000. Can you guess what it is now? I just checked. $208K.

Organizers depend on individuals. When the organizer is gone, events disappear. Bad tournament conditions have been frustrating me for years, and I have written about it before. I decided to take matters into my own hands by building ChessEver.

I believe that if we can build a better broadcasting experience, people will pay to watch chess games. When broadcasting becomes profitable, organizers will have a real revenue stream. Prize funds can grow. More tournaments become viable. Playing chess professionally becomes sustainable.

That is what ChessEver is really about. Not just a better platform to follow chess, but changing the whole ecosystem.