The World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2022 ended on the 30th of December 2022. It took place in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and gathered some of the best chess players in the world to play for a share of $1 million. For many chess pros, this was the most important event of the year, as it allowed them a chance to become world champions in one of the two modes.
Despite the hundreds of talented players participating in both events, the reigning world champion Magnus Carlsen won both competitions. He proved once again why he is considered by many the greatest of all time, not given any chances to his competitors. Magnus Carlsen now holds three World Chess Championship titles. In total, the legendary chess player has now won 15 world titles.
In the female events, Bibisara Assaubayeva, who was playing at home, managed to retain her blitz world title, becoming only the third woman in the history of the tournament to do so. As for the World Rapid Championship, Tan Zhongyi secured the title after defeating Dinara Sadaukassova in a tie-break.
The event became the second most popular of the FIDE 2022 season, with only the FIDE Candidates 2022 reaching a wider audience. Going into the event, plenty of viewers were interested to see who was going to take home the trophies and if anyone could stop Magnus Carlsen. These two factors, combined with the opportunity to see high qualify chess, helped the event reach a wide audience, with 134K Peak Viewers, and 66.5K concurrent viewers.
The Blitz Championship was the most popular of the two, having four of the five most popular matches. English was the most popular language of both events, with the Polish and Russian languages closing up the top three. YouTube was the platform of choice to watch both competitions with 75K PV, followed closely by Twitch with 59.9K PV.
Viewership comparison of the most popular events of the 2022 FIDE season
When we take look at the most popular events of the 2022 FIDE season, we can see that the World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2022 sits in second place. It has 54.8% more PV than the third most popular event but is far from the 204K PV reached by the FIDE Candidates 2022. The event was a success, reaching a wide audience, with viewers watching the tournaments for 2 million hours. It also had way less airtime than the other events on this list, being broadcasted for only 31 hours. Despite that, it still managed to attract the interest of chess fans from all over the globe.
In general, the events of the 2022 FIDE season were able to reach some good viewership numbers. However, compared to 2021, the tournaments saw a huge decrease in the PV metric. No event came close to the 613K Peak Viewers reached by the FIDE World Championship 2021, or the 220K PV achieved in the previous edition of the World Rapid and Blitz Championships.
Viewership comparison of the most popular chess events of 2022
World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2022 was also the second most popular chess tournament of 2022, and the fifth of all time, if we don't include Twitch Rivals and other similar events. It's clear that FIDE tournaments are the most popular in the world of chess. Three of them are among the five most popular events of last year, and they also occupy the 1 and 2 spots in this list.
The World Rapid and Blitz Championships 2022 wasn't able to achieve the viewership numbers of its previous edition, but it still managed to reach a large audience. Its viewership decline wasn’t that significant, as the event was still among the most popular of 2022, so it’s safe to call it a successful tournament.
With the FIDE World Chess Championship being back in 2023, and with Magnus Carlsen deciding not to defend his title, a new world champion will be crowned, which will certainly attract the attention of plenty of viewers. The 2023 FIDE season promises to be very exciting, and there is no doubt its events will continue to captivate more viewers into the world of professional chess.
