The FIDE World Cup 2023 concluded yesterday with Magnus Carlsen beating young Indian star R Praggnanandhaa 2.5-1.5 after a tiebreaker to claim the crown. It was quite an occasion for lovers of Chess worldwide, as seen by the fact that it became one of the most successful events ever in the sport.
World No. 1 Carlsen was able to add the one major trophy missing from his overflowing cabinet despite a valiant attempt by his fledgling Indian counterpart. The two drew the classical games to head into the rapid tiebreaks, where the Norwegian kept his cool to triumph and take home $110K. His beaten foe — who knocked out World No. 2 Hikaru Nakamura and World No. 3 Fabiano Caruana en route to the final — pocketed $80K.
The FIDE World Cup 2023, held at the Baku Marriott Hotel Boulevard, Baku, Azerbaijan, hit 380K Peak Viewers during the Grand Final between Carlsen and Praggnanandhaa, where the former won the tiebreaker 1.5-0.5. In the third-place match, Fabiano Caruana eased past Nijat Abasov in both rapid tiebreaks to win 3-1 and earn $60K.
Defending champion Jan-Krzysztof Duda was knocked out early, losing to Caruana in the fifth round. Interestingly, China's FIDE World Championship 2023 winner Ding Liren declined to participate in the World Cup, getting replaced by Nodirbek Abdusattorov of Uzbekistan.
With his run to the final, Praggnanandhaa also sealed his spot in the Candidates Tournament 2024 in Toronto, Canada. He became the third-youngest player to do so after the legendary Bobby Fischer and Carlsen himself. All this helped the tournament do 8.4M Hours Watched and 63K Average Viewers over an airtime of 133 hours, making it the fourth-longest Chess event on record.
Chess, with an especially massive presence in Europe and Asia, saw its World Cup mostly be watched on YouTube, which took up almost three-fourths of the watch hours pie. Similarly, English was the dominant language, notching more than half of the viewership pie, with Russian being the only other language to hit double figures.
All this meant that the FIDE World Cup 2023 became one of the most successful Chess tournaments ever, finishing third in the most popular and watched metrics. These tables are led by the FIDE World Championship 2021, with the FIDE World Championship 2023 in second on both counts. This reinforces the recent boom in popularity of the game, which saw a renaissance of sorts during the COVID-19 lockdown era, especially thanks to the online streaming community and the likes of Hikaru Nakamura taking up its cause to a level almost touching savior.
In fact, the top tournaments on both tables have come since 2021, with streamers and celebrities embracing it whole-heartedly and participating in events that have become some of the most followed ones in the sport today. Pogchamps is a great example of this trend, with the recent fifth edition ending as one of the more successful ones in the series.
Before 2020, if anyone had been told that Chess, its players, and prominent content creators would embrace the online medium to change the game as it was seen, there would hardly have been any takers. Yet, here we are in August 2023, with the likes of Nakamura and Carlsen emerging as genuine superstars on the internet, apart from their reputations in the sport, after playing pivotal roles in the thousand-year-old sport becoming fashionable again.
With more Chess competitions happening, higher prize pools being awarded, and interest at an all-time high to learn the game, the future looks pretty bright for now. Look no further than the likes of Praggnanandhaa, Alireza Firouzja, and Vincent Keymer as proof.
