At Norway Chess, the reigning World Chess Champion India's Dommaraju Gukesh playing against Norwegian chess grandmaster Magnus Carlsen grabbed many eyeballs with the match recording highest viewership so far during the tournament this year.
The match alone recorded 27 percent higher viewership than the normal average seen for other matches, said Avadh Shah, country director of Chess.com, one of the largest chess platforms. "It should lead to significantly higher viewership for the remainder of the tournament."
On Chess.com, Gukesh-Carlsen match on June 1 recorded 202,000 views in India while global viewership stood at 910,000.
The match recorded 172,000 views on Chessbase India, a popular chess platform in India.
"On platforms like Instagram, the short form content for Norway Chess has gotten us upwards of 15 million views from India alone. These numbers are still increasing," Shah said.
The Norway Chess tournament, until the Gukesh-Carlsen faceoff on June 1, recorded 850,000 views on Chess.com's India YouTube channel while globally on YouTube and Twitch, the combined viewership stood at 4.8 million. On Chessbase India, the tournament so far has recorded 907,000 views on YouTube.
"Norway chess has definitely seen the most traction this year in India. The next biggest are the FIDE Grand Swiss and the FIDE World Cup in September and November respectively, both a part of the World Championship cycle to choose a challenger for Gukesh," Shah noted.
The interest for chess in India had piqued last year when Gukesh had challenged the then reigning champion Ding Liren of China for the World Championship title. It was one of a kind event with both on-ground and YouTube streaming during the entire three-week duration. The traction was unprecedented both online and offline.
The total viewership for the first two days of the Championship was upwards of two million with a peak viewership of 75,000 at a single point of time. The on-ground event had recorded 75 to 80 percent occupancy with tickets priced at Rs 500.
"Following the World Championship last year, we have seen all-time high numbers for India on the platform both in terms of users as well as viewers. In terms of users, we touched a high of 9 million MAU (Monthly Active Users) and 1 million DAU (Daily Active Users) respectively. In terms of viewership, we touched close to 1 billion organic views on YouTube in 2024 through all forms of chess content," Shah said.
He added that chess in India has traditionally had an audience from the younger age demographic, but they have seen more people from older age groups enter the ecosystem over the past year to cheer the players. "On YouTube, 72 percent of our views come from viewers aged between 13-34. In terms of regions watching chess, Maharashtra leads, followed by Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. These four states contribute to 40 percent of our viewership."
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