Photo: Peter Doggers
After three days, the 3 million limit had been passed. After five rounds, YouTube statistics show that the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament has had 2.8 million viewers from all over the world. This equals an average of more than half a million viewers a day, more exactly, 558,000.
These are numbers never before seen when it comes to chess events in Sweden. Before this year’s TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament, the record was 26,200, during the live coverage of the Swedish Chess League in 2022. TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament can now show numbers that are 20 times higher.
The TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament producer Jimmy Mardell forwards the television images from the tournament venue at the Elite Plaza Hotel to a number of countries; among those India, Spain, Sweden, Turkiye and Uzbekistan.
The chess fever that Yagiz Kaan Erdogmus has created in his home country Turkiye is obvious.
The Chess24 coverage of the yesterday’s round had more than 150,000 viewers. It will e interesting to see how many Turkish viewers will be watching when the 14-year-old prodigy plays Magnus Carlsen in the last round on Thursday.
The interest in the TePe Sigeman & Co Chess Tournament in Sweden is also very noticeable.
The official live streams via the Swedish Chess Federation has, during the first five rounds, had 143,000 views, that is, an average of 28,000 a day. Add to this videos and interviews from this year’s tournament that have had almost 69,000 views. The federation’s YouTube channel has a total of plus 200,000 views this week. As a bonus, the Swedish Chess Federation channel has also increased the number of subscribers by 30 percent.
Deniz Arman, who is the program leader for the Swedish Chess Federation’s live transmissions via Twitch, is impressed by the numbers.
– An average of more than 500,000 views per round really shows what an impact the tournament has had at the international level, he says.
He also mentions a growing interest in SSF’s own coverage in Swedish. So far, there have been about 5,000 unique viewers, an increase by 74 percent, compared to the coverage of the European Team Championship in Batumi last fall.
The sixth round is on Wednesday, and the channel hosts from, among others, India, Spain, Sweden and Turkiye are preparing to present more exciting chess entertainment from Malmo, right now in the focus of the world chess community.
Top 20 Number of Views
• 150 259: Chess24 Turkiye, round 5
• 101 981: Chesscom India, round 5
• 95 052: Chess24 Turkiye, round 4
• 94 094: Chess24 Turkiye, round 2
• 94 224: Chesscom India, round 4
• 86 948: Chess24 Turkiye, round 3
• 84 489: Chesscom India (mobile), round 4
• 77 915: Chessbase India, round 1
• 76 139: Chessbase India, round 5
• 70 679: Chess24 India, round 2
• 70 469: Chess 24 India, round 4
• 67 983: Chessbase India, round 2
• 66 684: Chess24 India, round 5
• 64 748: Chesscom India, round 1
• 64 869: Chessbase India, round 4
• 62 283: Chesscom India, round 3
• 62 215: UzChess, round 4
• 61 535: UzChess, round 3
• 60 375: Chess24 Turkiye, round 1
• 55 750: Chesscom India (mobile), round 2