As part of the Financial Times' periodic coverage of chess, it recently published "Chess champion Magnus Carlsen leads gambit to capture ancient game". The subheading is "Norwegian fronts F1-inspired Freestyle Chess league that aims to exploit 'massive untapped potential'"
While other chess-oriented sites may provide more details, the FT.com article is actually pretty in-depth. Since the FT has no particular stake in the new chess league, it will probably have more balanced coverage in the future of the business aspects; currently, beyond the top chess stars announced, it's mostly hype. "Freestyle Chess" seems to be the latest attempt to sex up the variant Chess 960 aka Fischer Random.
It remains to be seen if the unprecedented level of chess content curently being demanded in video format, including event streaming, will translate well to the variant, which by definition will have a smaller interested audience to draw from. It's also worth noting that the Formula One circuit has largely been about prestige rather than profits, with wealthy sponsoring manufacturers also using it as a marketing mechanism for their non-F1 products. The same model won't really translate for this new league, although the perceived top-quality image for F1 is clearly what they are going for.
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