How Do I Make Money With Chess Besides Competing In Tournaments? Could I Also Make Millions?

According to MarketWatch (marketwatch.com), a finance website: “The global Chess market size was valued at USD 2110.06 million in 2021 and is expected to expand at a CAGR of 3.58% during the forecast period, reaching USD 2606.59 million by 2027.”

Here is the link to their sample report titled: “Chess Market with 3.58% CAGR : Emerging Trends, In Depth Analysis of Industry Share, Size, Key Market Dynamics, Restraints and Forecast to 2022-2027.”.

The general news site Insider (insider.com) also paints a very positive view of chess. It stated: "It is a massive industry. Almost all chess companies are not publicly listed and closely guard their market share. Sales of chess sets, books, and lessons sold worldwide are also immeasurable.”.

I can't link to the article but here's the title you can search online: 'The Queens Gambit' and the pandemic injected new life into the multimillion-dollar chess industry, with esports teams and sponsors rushing to snap up the game's Twitch stars.

Just like most sports, chess is a sport. Yes, it may be a board game but the International Olympic Committee considers chess to be a sport. According to them: “chess requires physical exertion as mental exertion manifests itself physically…”.

Chess has rules and etiquette which are officially recognized internationally. Chess is competitive as the participating players feel a drive to win…” If you are interested in all the other arguments why chess is considered a sport, just Google: “is chess a sport”.

But arguments aside, chess as a sport mostly pays the big money only to the top players of the game. For example, the current top players Magnus Carlsen and Vishy Anand had made more than US$ 1 million each for the last two years from winning at chess alone.

The other top players like Alexander Grischuk, Anish Giri, Boris Gelfand, Fabiano Caruana, Hikaru Nakamura, Levon Aronian, Sergey Karjakin, Veselin Topalov, Vladimir Kramnik and Wesley So have the ability to earn up to half a million dollar each from tournament winnings each year.

This is according to a May 24, 2021 article from Chess.com (chess.com) titled: How Much Money Do World Chess Champions Make?. I suggest you read the full article as it also contains a list of the most lucrative chess tournament winnings of all time.

The answer lies with the California Gold Rush Tale which gives a sobering picture of how it is to make real money in almost all circumstances. During the California Gold Rush most of the gold prospectors didn’t find gold and end up with nothing.

The people who really made the money were the businesses supporting the gold prospectors. These were the saloons, taverns, general store and all the other remote town services whom the gold prospectors needed in order to survive the remote gold mining areas.

The same is true with chess and other sports related business. Yes, there are sports players like the Michael Jordans of basketball that became billionaires but it is the owner of the shoes they are wearing which is Nike which made multibillions.

You may not be making chess related shoes but you can still create products and services related to chess. For example, even though you are not a championship level chess player, you can still organize chess tournaments and earn money from the ticket sales.

You can also sell chess themed merchandise like t-shirts, posters and mugs to begin with. There is also a market for large chess pieces that are not used for play but more as a decoration. As you can see, there are a lot of avenues for making money with chess.

Here is the link to Elite Chess: elitechess.net. If you would go to their website, right at their landing page, you would easily see how they monetize chess using three methods:

1) Online & In-Person Chess Classes: As the name of the service indicates, the company teaches people whether in-person or online on how to play chess. They even offer introductory free chess classes.

2. Virtual & In-Person Summer Camps: Although in many countries summer camps are not really that popular due to economic reasons, in the US it is big business. According to a December 29, 2021 report by IBISWorld (ibisworld.com):

The US summer camp industry is worth US$ 3.3 billion in 2022. Also, in 2022 the industry grew by an astonishing 11.1%. The report also noted that the total spending by US consumers on leisure activities would increase which would affect the summer camp industry.

3. Tournaments & Master Classes: As already stated before, one can make money off chess by organizing tournaments. Elite Chess has also gone via this route but also offers more advanced chess lessons.

The company is reported to be making six figures each year off their chess related business.

Google the word “chess” and chances are that the top recommended website would be Chess.com (chess.com). This is what appeared in my Google search results and the same website would also probably appear in your own Google search.

But besides the fact that the website was able to get a very much coveted domain name, the worth of their website is also interesting. According to company analysis website zoominfo (zoominfo.com): the website’s revenue is US$ 19 million.

A website analysis website called similarweb (similarweb.com) also gave an identical financial figure. It stated that the website’s revenue was between US$ 15 to US$ 25 million.

But how does chess.com make money? It is a freemium model which is supported by advertisement revenues. However, users can elect to pay to have the advertisements removed as well as unlock additional features.

In chess.com you can play chess with a computer or other players, watch chess games, solve chess puzzles, read and watch chess related news and so on. It is in short a total online chess portal.

Chess tutoring is such a lucrative niche industry that there are even world class tournament level chess players who have gone into the business. The popularity of online tutoring has also made chess tutoring global in scale.

Even freelancing sites such as Fiverr and UpWork which only primarily caters to digital content workers now also have gig workers who teach chess and other board game sports. But a word of warning: there are already several thousands of so-called online chess tutors on such sites.

Almost all of these so-called chess tutors claim that they could improve your chess playing skills. For an aspiring chess tutor, it might be very hard for you to stand out among the thousand of chess tutors online.

The best way to standout is by gaining some chess pedigree. For example, you should at least have a few chess tournament wins under your belt. It doesn’t matter if you’re a world class or an amateur champion, what’s important is that you can show that you’re an actual chess champion.

The higher is your chess winning pedigree, the more money you can demand from your chess students. You don’t also have to tutor only: You can write books about chess move strategies, how other championship chess players think and so on.

So far we’ve discussed a few ways of making money with chess. We’ve discussed online and in-person tutoring, writing a book about chess move strategies and other information related to chess.

We have also discussed about selling merchandise related to chess like t-shirts, posters and mugs. We have also talked about organizing chess tournaments. Are there any other ways of making money we might have missed?

Of course beating the likes of chess.com by setting up a website entirely dedicated to chess is nearly out of the question because these websites are already well established giants in the field.

But how about being a talent manager for chess players and brokering chess events between top chess players? There is already one company doing this and it is called Chess and Company.

The company operates between London and Moscow and is headed by management who are responsible for the top sponsorship deals in chess today. This development just shows how lucrative chess as a business has become. You could also do this on a smaller scale.

Chess is a lucrative sport to be in right now especially if you as a chess player becomes a world champion or even just becomes a top ranked champion. Your earnings could run in the millions of dollars if you’re lucky.

But besides being a world class chess player, there are still other ways to make money off chess: You could become a tutor, organize tournaments, sell merchandize, write books, have a website, create digital content, be a talent manager and so on.

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