The FTX Road To Miami, the fifth tournament in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 series from Play Magnus, ended last weekend on the Chess24 platform. Sixteen players from the USA, China, India and Europe participated competed for a prize pool of $150K and, most importantly, the slot at the second major of the series in current season.
In the final of the FTX Road To Miami American-Armenian grandmaster Levon Aronian scored a confident win over Chinese grandmaster Wei Yi. In all winning match games the champion played with black pieces. It is interesting that 39-year-old Aronian was the oldest tournament participant.
Levon Aronian | Source: armenpress.am
As a reminder, the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 season began in February and will continue until November. It consists of nine tournaments with a total prize pull of $1.6 million. Chess players from 40 countries participate in the competitions. The MCCT tournaments are divided into two types: minors and majors. A larger number of participants take part in the minors, but the prize fund is smaller there. Winners of minors get the right to play in the majors with fewer participants and more prize money.
After five tournaments, the Norwegian Magnus Carlsen became the leader of the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 rankings. He won the first two tournaments in the series and earned $106.5K. Polish grandmaster Jan-Krzysztof Duda is in second place in the seasonal ranking ($73K). FTX Road To Miami champion Levon Aronian takes ninth place ($35.7K). At the end of the season, the administration of chess24 will award the best player in the whole series. Individual prizes will also be awarded for achievements in certain categories and game modes.
FXT Road To Miami statistics
The FTX Road To Miami matches accumulated 336.5K Hours Watched for almost 35 hours of airtime, and the overall Peak Viewers numbers on all channels covering the tournament was 22.1K. The most watched of these was the official chess24 stream on YouTube (121.8K Hours Watched). ChessBase India (39.1K on YouTube) took second place and another chess24 channel (36.6K on Twitch) ranked third.
The leader in terms of Peak Viewers was the Twitch channel of American grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura, which broadcasted the FTX Road To Miami matches. He generated 8.7K Peak Viewers. The second and third most popular channels were chess24 (5.5K viewers on YouTube) and ChessBase India (4K viewers on YouTube).
The most popular language for the tournament's broadcasting was English (18K Peak Viewers). Polish (4.5K) and Turkish (1.2K) were also in the top 3. Comparing platforms, the bulk of viewers followed the matches on YouTube.
Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 events viewership
FTX Road To Miami turned out to be the most modest tournament in terms of audience reach out of all five tournaments in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour 2022 series. It was four times behind the Airthings Masters 2022 in terms of Peak Viewers and Average Viewers of the broadcasts. However, such a big difference is not surprising because FTX Road To Miami is essentially a qualifier for the FTX Crypto Cup majors. The tournament in Miami is expected to attract a significantly larger audience.
The top 5 most watched chess tournaments in 2022 are led by FIDE Candidates 2022, which ended on July 4. The event's matches generated 204K Peak Viewers. Tata Steel Chess Tournament 2022 with 123.9K viewers is in second place in the ranking.
Most popular chess tournaments in 2022
Both FTX Road To Miami finalists gain the right to perform at FTX Crypto Cup, the sixth tournament in the MCCT series, which will be held August 15-21 in Miami, Florida. The participants will compete for $310K, and the organizers themselves call the FTX Crypto Cup the biggest tournament in the history of the series. At the moment we know the names of six participants in the FTX Crypto Cup. Among them will be the legendary Norwegian grandmaster and FIDE number one — Magnus Carlsen. Two other players will be determined in the Wild Card qualifiers.
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