I see a very serious problem with Chess Marketing and PR in the United States. Perhaps you can help me find a solution for it.
* More than a week ago, IM Eugene Perelshteyn got his third and final GM norm at the 2006 Foxwoods Open to become the 60th Grandmaster in the United States. That would put the US in a tie for second place with Germany and behind Russia for countries with the most Grandmasters. Not a bleep about this in the media including the USCF. This site congratulated Eugene in this post (posted by SusanPolgar @ 4/17/2006 07:20:00 PM).
* FIDE just awarded new titles at the recent President Board meeting. This site congratulated 5 players with USA connections in the previous post.
* The US Men’s and Women’s Olympiad Teams are competing in less than a month. No word on the website about the final team rosters, the coaching staff or the captains. Is this a big secret? Is it so difficult to let the members know? How can the people care about the teams if they do not even know the team? And the USCF wants members to support the teams? Support what? Support who?
In the last Olympiad, chess players and the media were kept informed about the historic US Women’s Olympiad Team 18 months before, during and after the Olympiad. We even had daily reports and pictures from Spain. We had over 20 sponsors and we were greeted by the NY City Sports Commissioner Ken Podziba and Governor Pataki. The work was done by the captain and business manager of the team.
These are just three of the countless examples. My questions are:
* Does our own chess federation know about this?
* Does our own chess federation think that news like this is important?
This blog was started last May by 2 people with no web programming experience. Amy B., a SPF board member introduced to me about the world of blogging and I received a 10-15 minute introduction. Today, this site is being updated multiple times daily with chess news, chess improvement and commentaries about special events in the US and around the world. How is this possible? How can 2 people do this and the entire federation cannot? There are more daily visitors to these related websites than the USCF website. Isn’t that shocking?
Offers were made multiple times to help the USCF with the daily contents, marketing and PR and chess newsletter for FREE. I am still waiting for their response.
What is our budget to bring chess enthusiasts all of this? ZERO! Just the love and passion for chess and the desire to make a difference by a team of 2 people! My question then why can’t the same be done for US Chess? I receive the same Google News alert as everyone else. I know the same chess news source as any other chess organization. So why can’t our federation improve on this?
There is more. We have not even talked about the ugly side of chess politics. Members of the USCF Scholastic Council approached me not to long ago to create a special program for girls similar to the Trophies-Plus All-America Chess Team. I agreed and my foundation agreed to sponsor this program, the first ever for girls in the United States. I never asked how it can benefit my foundation. We did it because it was the right thing to do. The only thing we asked was for the USCF to let all the girls know about this program. Otherwise, how would they even know to take advantage of it?
Instead of embracing such an initiative that could change girl’s chess, this was publicly published by one current USCF board member and former President of the USCF:
“Concerning your proposal, I do not think you have done anything wrong or inappropriate. In fact, you should be congratulated for thinking about a good way to get free publicity in Chess Life Magazine and other USCF vehicles of advertisement at no cost for your foundation. You can correct me if I am wrong, but I view your proposal as follows:
The Susan Polgar Foundation is requesting the right to use the USCF’s brand name “All America Team”, plus free publicity in the USCF Publications to do fund raising for your foundation. In exchange you offer to give jackets, plaques and training to the girls who qualify in the team. According to this proposal you manage to find an approach that gives your foundation a lot publicity and visibility for your fund raising strategies at a very low cost…”
This was a blatant premeditated lie to distort the truth and to derail programs which benefit girls. This person has done this many times in the past to stop girl’s tournaments.
The attitude is we must hide good news and beneficial stuff away from our kids and our players. Otherwise, they would get too motivated to get better in chess or stay with the game. In addition, we must stop any organization that is more competent than ours or any chess group that is not willing to engage in dirty politics. Otherwise, we would look foolish because we cannot control them.
I heard the same complaints from other organizations such as the AF4C and the Karpov SOC, etc. about their dealings with some USCF politicians. Because of this, I decided to change the name of the award to the Susan Polgar All-Stars Girl’s Chess Team so dirty politics can no longer affect it. Thankfully, other board members and the ED accepted the idea and now many girls will benefit from this program. I thank them for that.
This is the typical lies, deceit and dirty politics displayed by some chess politicians that ruin US Chess for years. The membership dropped to a low of around 78,000 members not long ago from a high of 95,000. Countless companies and good people have walked away because they are disgusted with this kind of behavior. This is why this country produces so few FIDE titled players and virtually no world-class level players and constantly in financial troubles. In the mean time, a tiny nation like Turkey is shooting for 1 million members. I am hoping that the majority of this board will recognize this very serious problem and do what it takes to make things better.
We have to drastically improve the Marketing and PR aspect of US Chess. Bring in the experts who can help and totally eliminate the bad side of chess politics. There is no need to spend big bucks for this. There are enough volunteers who are willing, ready and able to help. There are enough chess organizations out there that are willing to partner with the USCF. What are we waiting for?
The good thing is with technology like blogging and the Internet; these deep, dark, ugly secrets can no longer be kept quiet.
What can be done to stop this? What can be done to make sure that the best interest of US Chess is always protected? The forum is yours.
I say start naming names. It will make you enemies, but it will also force your enemies to defend themselves.
Start a fight and people will notice and if you’re right, things will change.
Susan:
This is a very problematic issue within the chess community. Very few know how to get publicity and those that don’t know but are in a position of importance, such as the USCF as the national federation here, do not wish to ask for help for whatever reason (primarily I believe is ego).
The US Championships were a simple example of this issue. Instead of getting in front of every major newspaper across the country nothing was done to promote the national championships.
Will this change – I believe it will but only through partnerships and grass roots movements. It will be a slower climb than if we united and publicized chess. But instead we have infighting, ego trips, and so forth. Not to mention questionable acts in the national federation here.
You state why certain aspects of chess such as Eugene Perelshteyn gaining his final GM norm, local North American players gaining their titles, or the Olympiad team members not be advertised – well I think it’s simple that the USCF does not care for FIDE or anything related to FIDE which includes titles and FIDE tournaments.
How many FIDE championship tournaments has the USCF organized in the past 5 years? The past 10 years? I can’t think of any – can you or anyone else?
Events where norms are possible are quite limited for the players as well – ok you can get it at about 5 or 6 tournaments throughout the year, the US Open included which is the only one that the USCF ‘runs’ (yes you can get it at the US Championships but the USCF doesn’t even run that). You don’t see the USCF trying to do anything that is truly FIDE related. This is an ego trip and plain arrogance.
Who loses here? It’s the players and the non-playing chess lovers.
But enough of this. We should have a thread somewhere to discuss how we can better penetrate the culture and get chess into maybe not mainstream immediately but middle-stream (as it is now hidden-stream).
–Sevan
This is typical behavior in ANY organization. There is a difference, though, between a large or well-run, and a small or not-so-well-run organization. In the former, the problems and problem people are sorted out and dealt with, while in the latter they just stick around.
The ONLY way, IMHO, to deal with this is to form a takeover group and get rid of the troublemakers, and do it QUIETLY. There is no need or benefit to point fingers – just show up and vote in the replacements.
Starting a competing organization is almost completely futile, and we have many examples to point to here. Going public and making noise, while it may offer gratification, also does nothing and may even be harmful, as you’ll be portrayed as a bunch of malcontents and whiners, plus it also creates a long term image problem.
So just go out there, seek your allies and get organized, and get the job done.
and meanwhile germany lost one of it’s greatest grandmasters of chess by death … the US are the greatest … i suppose … ^^ (the new ratio will be – germany 59 – US – great – 60 grandmasters of chess – dammned huns – applause to the US …. we made them … !???????
(?????? as we did years ago – with the help of the british, the french, the canadians, the russians, the lativians, the polnish, the italians, the aussies and all the other allies – *tusk *tusk … *TUSK … ^^ – of course – never alone … never … never ever … )
sincerly – Vohaul (german ranking number 45,673 – *hehe)
I reported the 2006 Foxwoods Open at http://www.chessville.com, with pictures and results [NB, also of the top woman] – I would have personally attended and reported the event [only 2 hours away]if there was advance notice to the chess press. There would even have been interest from the UK via my connection with GM Keene, who would have noted the event in The Times and International Herald Tribune. An article could also be made international via ‘stringing’ it to Chess Chronicle, with is now bi-lingual English/Spanish.
In the coming month more people will read of the event at Chessville than the entire membership of USCF.
I would have reported more if I knew that there was no other coverage whatever.
What are 30 staffers at USCF actually doing if they cannot announce this very significant event beforehand or cover it afterwwards?
Phil Innes
This is a very serious problem with the USCF. They should partner up with chessville.com, chesscafe.com, chessbase.com and this blog to bring the best for their members instead of wasting money for a content manager who has very little experience in this field.
susan,
I am primarily involved in the technology business. I started playing chess 3 years ago as a hobby. What really got me interested was the link between computers and chess.
In any case, I know very little about USCF politics. I merely own an ID so I can play in rated tournaments.
From my intimate knowledge of business though, it sounds like USCF has a leadership problem.
Here is some news to you though. Right now you are the number one promoter of chess in the US. It is upto you to make it a premier sport. I was surprised the other day that when I mentioned to a friend that I played chess, he asked if I knew Susan Polgar. He plays no chess at all but is aware of you.
I personally think that a 2 or 3 hour game of chess has great scope as a hobby for most business people.
Why don’t you organize something like HB Global with Business sponsors. It should have strict requirements for dress code so only people with class will attend. Doing something like this for 3-4 years is what will put the game on the chart.It could be shown on ESPN (in time).
Also a unification of the world championship etc. are all steps that will make the game even more popular.
I do not think the USCF will take the lead in popularizing chess (from what you say), they may merely support others efforts like they did with HB.
The USCF website has virtually nothing attractive for its members. Why not direct members to this blog for content? This would be a wonderful service for USCF members.
Chico is right. This blog has some of the best contents on the web. Why not use it? Why waste members’ money on something that doesn’t work?
Hi Susan,
You have a wonderful site and you have done a fantastic job in promoting chess– thank-you!
Perhaps the USCF is too big and political to be nimble and change it’s culture, and any positive change will occur over a large period of time. I personally believe that much can be done to improve the USCF site to make it much more functional, and I hope that the organization is able to effectively improve the site and communication. Until this happens, perhaps it is best if other dedicated individuals, such as yourself and countless other dedicated volunteers, work outside of the USCF umbrella to improve the overall chess scene. Let the USCF deal with it’s own politics, and hope for the best.
Thank-you for creating such an entertaining and newsworth site Susan!
Sincerely,
Gregory Alexander
http://www.tatiana.net/iccl/
If you guys start a takeover group, let me know. I let my USCF membership lapse because I didn’t see any benefit from it. There is very little support for local clubs from the National organization. Most of the headway is being made by local volunteers. And some even opt to use different rating organizations like ChessExpress. All of my progress comes from ICC so that’s where I put my money right now.
PS
Susan,
Everything you say is so interesting to me. Back in 1972 during the fischer days, I got into chess. My close friend at work was a very good chess player and he would tell all of us about the USCF and chess in the USA.
He said everything you are saying today. everything except for one thing. My friend was expectant that USCF would soon get its act together and things were going to change.
So I joined as a uscf life member back in 1972. well I have observed the uscf for some 34 years now. and they have gone from bad to worse back to bad. but bad is as good as it has ever been. They have never supported anyone. the one thing that really comes to mind is that whenever they managed to get out of the financial hole and get some money into the bank, the top people always seemed to walk off with the money and we returned to a bad financial situation.
I dont know what their problem is. I dont think there is a solution at the uscf. My advice is to focus on yourself and keep doing the super job you have been doing.
as they said in the movie The Matrix. Susan You are the One. Accept that you are the One and pick up the ball and I guarantee you will score a touchdown. there is no one else out on the playing field. I know you can do it.
The problem with USCF is that they are a monopoly. They have a monopoly on FIDE membership and they have a de facto monopoly on domestic ratings.
They also suffer from a lack of a sound financial base. This is due to previous mismanagement and an inability, whether because of apathy or incompetence or something else, to attract corporate sponsorship or mass-media PR.
Perhaps the way to change chess in America is to start afresh with the children. For the vast majority of juniors, a national federation with FIDE membership (FIDE rating, norms, representing US internationally) is irrelevant. Even the domestic rating system can be reformed to better meet the needs of children. Once a new generation of non-USCF American chessplayers grows up, there will be enough of a groundswell of support for a reformed adult federation for all ages. [The main drawback of this approach is that it does not help the small but vital group of talented youngsters who could be strong American titled players since they could not take part in FIDE without the USCF]
Another approach would be to set up a new organization dedicated to online chess in America. Many online chessplayers don’t care about FIDE ratings or international representation. Online ratings are already separate from USCF ratings. It would be opportunity to attract a growing segment of 21st century chess players.
Keep your good work going,
because we all need you.
And some day even the
allmighty USCF will find out
that they can’t do without
you and all your supporters.
It will be a long road ahead
since you have chosen to preach
chess in a country without
history and culture.
PS
I am convinced that you do not meet
the same problems working with children.