That doesn't make sense, usually in 5 minute chess world championships, they play at least two or three games.

Tennis is also a viewer-sport, Go is not and will likely never be.

But I'd definetely love to see some more international competition.

It is absolutely a viewer-game. Newspapers, television companies, and various other sponsors are paying for rights and the prize money for players. Without viewers, that activity would be pointless.

I'm not saying it has no viewers, or that noone is interested in the title matches but rather that you don't have a lot of pure viewers (as in people who don't play but watch), which essentially limits the audience.

Also are these things really televised? I can't imagine people viewing up to 2x8 hours per game and titles have multiple of those.

I also recall that they broadcasted a title match over some streaming service a few months ago(don't remember which it was) and when I tuned in it had barely over thousand viewers, which is not a lot.

I might be wrong, would be nice if someone who is a little more connected with the asian world could provide some insight.

Watching a long-time-limit game on TV would have very little interest for viewers who know almost nothing about the game. I enjoy watching Japanese title games on a server when the game might take all day, though I don't usually watch for more than two or three hours. I like to think about where I would move next and, if the player is taking a long time to decide the next move, I like to think about what the issues are that require such a long time. People who don't know much about a game may enjoy watching it if there is a lot of action, which is not the case with go. Most of the televised games are fast games, such as the NHK tournament in Japan, which I have watched many times. The game is video-recorded in a studio and there is a commentator, usually a well-known pro, who does a "real time" commentary on the game which is also taped in the studio. The game is not broadcast as it is being played but rather a week or two later. Even with 10 minutes free thinking time and 30 second byo yomi, the game can last longer than the allotted TV time. In that case the showing of the game is edited and the announcer rapidly plays through as many as 20 or 30 moves to get to a point in the endgame where the last moves are shown with the commentary. I can't imagine a sponsor willing to pay for hours of TV time to broadcast one game. On the other hand the "production cost" is low for internet broadcast so that would be the way to do it.

P.S. Even players on an internet go server aren't "with it" when it comes to watching a long-time-limit game, as evidenced by observers' comments as to why the players are taking so long.

For the 2 day games you picked, NHK BS shows about 3 hours or so with commentary and at the nihon kiin and kansai kiin as well as the onsite location, they will gather an audience with pro commentary. For the the two day major tournaments, they've started airing the entire thing on Niconico with the onsite pro commentary mixed in.

The shorter tournaments have all been geared aimed directly at TV. In Japan, NHK and Ryusei have time limits made to fit in 90 min slots (much editing is done still) and in Korea, you can see many of their major tournaments live on Baduk TV either through baduk tv itself or gogameguru's baduk tv live streaming.

You have to look for "live:" here but it will give you some idea.
http://gogameguru.com/baduk-tv-guide/

I don't know as much about Chinese scene but Weiqi tv online has started up recently and looks interesting.

In Tennis, you have the Masters as an unofficial world championship, but the tradition of the grand slam is superior. Becoming world n°1 without winning a grand slam is possible, but it hasn't happened often in the past.

There are a few sports where the world champion is decided in one event and I think it is a stupid idea. In cycling for example, the rainbow jersey does give some aura to the winner of last year's WC but still the winner of Tour de France is considered more of a n°1. There's a ranking system too and though not disregarded it is more of a numeric confirmation of a feeling that fans have about the sport.

Wherever you look, you'll find that tradition prevails. Even if there comes a big event for World Champion, with big prize money, fans will look at LG cup, Ing, Samsung ... And these companies will put their prize money at level, so the struggle continues.

Are you referring to www.weiqitv.com ?

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Patience, grasshopper.

Yes

Interesting, thanks for posting this. Was surprised to learn that the first two international tournaments happened only as recently as 1988. Maybe we'll see developments in international go evolve as more time passes.


The question who is the best is one that is good for sport and one that we've seen help boost their popularity in significant ways repeatedly (for example when the world takes note of some new charismatic or otherwise interesting hero who's recently risen to the top of their discipline or an old one showing us they can still find ways to stay there). A World Championship is a nice thing to have but a world ranking system is probably more useful. The example of tennis has already already served us well here. Chess provides us with a pretty good illustration of this for exactly the reasons already cited. Am sure many chess fans have considered Carlsen to be their world champ long before he took the actual title from Anand recently. That he did it so convincingly isn't remarkably surprising when we look at the two champions world rankings and tournament activity over the most recent years. With the top go players in the world being this evenly matched for strength as we are seeing today a world ranking would be a really cool thing for us to have.




Eddy "the cannibal" Merckx

525 Victories

5 Tour de France
5 Giro
1 Vuelta
3 World championships
1 Amateur world championship
7 Milan-San Remo
2 Tour of Flanders
3 Paris-Roubaix
5 Liège-Bastogne-Liège
2 Amstel Gold races
2 Tour of Lombardy
2 Het Volk
3 Ghent-Wevelgem
3 Flèche-Wallonne
1 Paris-Brussels

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"Tsumegos are for reading power and Tesujis for knowing which moves to read"