The ongoing 2024 FIDE World Championship has been a riveting watch for casual fans, with the two combatants going toe to toe as they look to add their names to the history books. That has also helped attract more eyeballs toward the competition, which is now among the three most popular events ever in Chess.
This year, the lengthy contest to determine the ancient game's best player is being fought between defending champion GM Ding Liren and young upstart GM Gukesh Dommaraju in Singapore. The former had defeated Ian Nepomniachtchi to clinch the vacant 2023 crown after reigning champion GM Magnus Carlsen had declined to defend his title.
The 2024 FIDE World Championship has so far registered 505.2K Peak Viewers, which was achieved during the end of Game 7. After many current and former players, including Carlsen, had opined that this year's contest had lacked the quality of matches seen before, Gukesh and Ding responded with a thrilling 72-move drawn game on December 3, helping attract a sizeable online crowd.
Their stalemate also meant that the overall score remained tied at 3.5 points each halfway through the contest, which is being held at the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore. The two players have won a game each, and their efforts so far also mean that this world championship is now the third most popular Chess competition of all time.
Interestingly, the two most popular events are also FIDE World Championships from 2021 and 2023. This year's iteration also has the highest prize pool ever seen for a single tournament in the game, with $2.5 million at stake, including $200,000 for each game won (counting forfeits), with the remainder of the money to be split equally.
However, in the case of the need for a tiebreaker to decide the world champion, the winner will receive $1.3 million, while the loser will take home $1.2 million.
We're at the halfway point of the 2024 FIDE World Championship, and things are finally heating up. After both participants made tentative starts, the seventh game showed that with the shackles off, they could provide quality action.
While Ding is looking to become another name to retain his world title and enter the record books, Gukesh — already the youngest Challenger in Chess history — will aim to make more history by emerging as the youngest-ever winner.
There are still many matches to come, which fans can catch on the official channels of FIDE, the organizer, and Chess.com. Official regional channels for the latter will also be broadcasting the matches, which viewers can get the schedule of on their handles:
Chesswatch will also be tracking all the happenings and coming up with a report of this highly coveted Chess event. Moreover, the public page will regularly be updated with the latest viewership statistics, and readers interested in getting detailed data across the entire livestreaming industry, can contact us for any help.
