Can television, chess, and the Olympics ever mix? This is a question I was asking myself after I watched a program called “Curling Night in America” on the NBC Sports Network last night.
People sometimes call curling “chess on ice.” The comparison makes sense in some ways, not in others. Like chess, curling is quite slow-moving and cerebral, as both teams try to place stones closest to a target (similar to games like bocce, horseshoes, etc.), to knock their opponents’ stones away or block their opponents from knocking their stones away.
Unlike chess, there is a physical aspect to curling. You not only have to conceive a plan but you have to physically execute it. In chess, once you have decided to play Nf3, actually playing the move is never a problem (except in the case of extreme time pressure). On the other hand, although I am not an expert on curling by any means, my impression is that its strategy is much less deep than in chess.
From the viewpoint of television, curling faces some of the same problems that chess does. It’s very un-telegenic. A lot of people have never heard of it, and others would consider it as exciting as watching paint dry. How would a mainstream television network try to convince us to watch curling? And why would they bother?
How:
- Invent a faster-moving version of the game. The show last night featured a mixed doubles match, a new version of curling with only half as many stones (so the game only lasts half as long). This will also be a new event at the 2018 Olympics.
- Call it “Curling Night in America.” You have to admire the chutzpah of the title. Even though it’s only curling night at a drab ice rink in some small town in Minnesota, and the fans don’t even fill up three rows of bleachers, you can still pretend that the whole nation is watching.
- Find young, attractive players. They hit the jackpot last night, because the U.S. team was two 20-year-olds who looked like they came from central casting. Think Harry Potter and Hermione Granger, and you won’t be far off. But they were really good, too. The woman, Sarah Anderson, made some absolutely sick shots, like knocking two of the Japanese stones out of the “house” (the bull’s-eye target) with her last shot while leaving four U.S. stones in the house, to score 4 points.
- Bring in a celebrity commentator. In this case, Tanith White, a former ice dancing gold medalist.
- Aside from that, play it straight. I thought that was the best thing about the telecast. They didn’t try to pump it up with fancy graphics or a hip-hop soundtrack. They just let the game speak for itself.
Why:
- It’s an Olympic sport.
As far as I’m concerned, there is no other reason, nor is any other reason needed. There are lots of more popular sports in America than curling (including, in my opinion, chess!) but when you’re an Olympic sport, you have instant credibility.
So, could there be a “Chess Night in America”? I totally think so. We’ve got young, photogenic players, we’ve got international competition, we’ve got faster-moving versions of chess. The only thing that we don’t have is the Olympic credibility.
Could chess ever be an Olympic sport? This is one of those questions, like “Can we ever harness fusion energy?”, that seems to be talked about forever but never seems to become reality.
I did a little bit of Internet searching before I started writing this, and I was surprised to see some articles from last summer saying that FIDE President Kirsan Ilyumzhinov had met with the organizer of the 2018 Winter Olympics and gotten him to agree to include chess as a demonstration sport. (This is often a preliminary to being accepted as an official Olympic sport, as it was for curling.) But it seemed as if the publicity was only emanating from Ilyumzhinov himself: I don’t see any mention of it on the International Olympic Committee’s page. And of course, Ilyumzhinov isn’t president any more. So I will just say, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”
I still think it’s very unlikely that chess will ever be an official Olympic sport. The fact that no actual physical skill is involved will, I think, always be a huge strike against it. Also, the Summer Olympics are so huge and so crammed with events that it’s very tough to get a new one accepted. The Winter Olympics seem like a better option, but there isn’t anything inherently “wintry” about chess.
Even though it’s unlikely to happen, I still think that chess organizers and federations should keep trying. I hope that within my lifetime, I’ll get to watch “Chess Night in America” on TV!
