Global Chess League weighs up expansion plans after breaking even in third season
The Global Chess League has broken even in just the third season, beating the expectations of organiser Tech Mahindra. “When we started the league, we were hoping to do it in five to seven years, but we have done it sooner,” the GCL’s chairperson Peeyush Dubey told Sportstar. “One of the reasons is that the game of chess has grown much more popular during the last three years after the first edition.”
He said the league could interest the world’s major tech companies. “Even in Season 2 last year, we had some initial interest from sponsors,” said Dubey. “But this year, if you look at the sponsor slate, it is like any league in the world would be India’s sponsor. Yeah, it is thrilling. IBM, AMD, Microsoft, Google…they are all here.”
The third season, which ended in Mumbai on Tuesday, was the first in India for the GCL, after travelling to Dubai and London. Dubey said already four cities had expressed interest in hosting the fourth edition of the league, to be held from September 2 to 13. “We were surprised by the response from the audience in Mumbai,” he said. “I think for any game, it is important to be where the fans are, where the engagement is.”
Dubey said there were plans to expand the league. “If we continue to see the kind of response that we are getting, we do not think that we will only have to contend with one big league in the year,” he said. “It is possible for us to have some other formats, like a minor league with the same teams in a different country and then bring it back to the key location. Unlike most other sports, it is possible for us to create a league which has multiple engagements throughout the year rather than only one big thing.”
Dubey said that chess has never received the recognition and the commercial success that some of the other games received. “We believe that is primarily because the sport is seen as a solitary game, which does not make it very exciting for the spectators to watch, and that is what we wanted to change with the GCL,” he said. “We felt that there was a good opportunity, and are glad that the GCL is delivering on that promise to the extent that we have seen in the first three seasons.”
Published on Dec 25, 2025