The Meltwater Champions Chess Tour final tournament in San Francisco, featuring the strongest players of the season, ended on November 20. The Norwegian grandmaster Magnus Carlsen reaffirmed his status as the strongest chess player on the planet. However, his victory in the tournament did not attract as many viewers as in the previous championship series. Find more details in the review by Esports Charts.
Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals is the last of three Champions Chess Tour majors in 2022. It was preceded by the Julius Baer Generation Cup and Aimchess Rapid qualifiers. The final tournament had a Swiss system format, with eight participants playing against each other one by one. Magnus Carlsen won the tournament, scoring 20 points. Wesley Saux from the USA took second place, scoring 13 points. It should be noted that Carlsen's dominance at the tournament was unchallenged, and he won all of his games in the last two rounds.
Viewership Statistics
Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals 2022 matches racked up 709K Hours Watched and drew 21.7K Average Viewers on the broadcasts. November 19, the penultimate day of the tournament attracted 36.1K Peak Viewers.
English became the most popular language of broadcasts — it accounted for more than 58% of the HW total. Polish is in second place with 16.7% of the HW total. Turkish and Tagalog made up about 7% of that number. As for platforms, 73% of viewers watched the tournament on YouTube.
Most viewers watched the majors on chess24 and Magnus Carlsen channels on YouTube — they accumulated 154K and 77K HW, respectively. Their PV numbers were 8.8K and 5.5K, respectively.
Comparison with Other Tournaments
Regular Champions Chess Tour qualifiers in 2022
The Champions Chess Tour season comprised nine championships — six regular tournaments and three Majors. In other words, each Major was preceded by two regular tournaments, which were qualifying stages. Airthings Masters and Julius Baer Generation Cup were the most popular regional tournaments — they were held online in February and September, respectively. Interestingly, Magnus Carlsen became the champion of both of these tournaments.
FTX Road to Miami held in July was the most unpopular tournament of the season. It racked up 336K HW and drew 9.7K AV. At the same time, the event reached 22.1K PV, which was four times fewer than the Airthings Masters had. We should note that FTX Road to Miami was the only tournament in which the Norwegian grandmaster did not participate. Another important fact is that FTX Road to Miami was held just a few days after the FIDE Candidates 2022 final. Interestin, 82.71% of FTX Road to Miami viewers watched FIDE. At the same time, this is only 5.31% of the audience of the FIDE Candidates
Champions Chess Tour Majors in 2022
Meltwater Champions Chess has become the most unpopular Chess Tour Finals Major in 2022. It fell behind the leader FTX Crypto Cup 2022 by all key metrics: -29% of HW, -43% of PV, and -20% of AV on broadcasts. Comparing Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals with the 2021 Finals, last year's tournament was twice as popular by PV.
It should be noted that the status of the tournament had no effect on the viewership numbers in general. Some Minors had a better viewership than Majors, even though the latter had a larger prize pool. One of the reasons for the low Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals 2022 performance could be the fact that Carslen guaranteed his first place in the tournament prematurely. In FTX Crypto Cup, the intrigue lasted until the last match, and the Norwegian was only one point ahead of Ameshbabu Praggnanandhaa from India and Alireza Firouzja from France. Carlsen had a seven-point advantage over his closest pursuer at Meltwater Champions Chess Tour Finals.
Magnus Carlsen won five of the nine Meltwater Champions Chess Tour events: the Airthings Masters, Charity Cup and Julius Baer Generation Cup qualifiers as well as the FTX Crypto Cup and Meltwater Tour Finals Majors. It is interesting that he played against different opponents in the finals of each of these tournaments.
