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Chess is on an all-time high in India at the moment with the exploits of D Gukesh and Co and Gourav Rakshit is hoping for that to rub off on the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League, which is scheduled to be held in Mumbai from December 14-24.

India is seeing an influx of multiple leagues across various sporting disciplines in the last 8-10 years but sustaining professional sports leagues has always been a challenge and the Sportzpower Pro Leagues Forum 2025 summit addressed the matter.

World Pickleball League founder Gaurav Natekar, Tech Mahindra Global Chess League commissioner Gourav Rakshit and Pro Kabaddi League commissioner Anupam Goswami dwelt upon the possibilities and complexities of the challenge.

Natekar offered his perspective by stating that the newness and niche space that pickleball occupies makes it a huge challenge to grow and sustain the league.

“Chess or Kabaddi, these are all sports which are very very old. Pickleball is far too new. So I think the jury is out on that one. Certainly as of today, in the next 2-3 years, it seems to be a lot more of a participative sport. And while we broadcast it on Sony Sports Network in Season 1 and Fan Code, while the numbers were minuscule to be brutally honest, I think those numbers will grow slowly and steadily. But it remains to be seen whether it becomes a spectator sport like some of the traditional sports or whether it goes the way of marathons which are hugely participative,” he added.

The former India Davis Cupper explained that WPBL will see how the trends are in the coming few years and take a call on how to move forward.

“I mean even a marathon runner, I am sure, doesn't sit and watch a marathon that he is not performing in for 3-4 hours. I think the jury is out on that one and like Anupam said, we will try and see what the trends are and learn quickly and pivot if we need to,” he added.

Chess is on an all-time high in India at the moment with the exploits of D Gukesh and Co and Gourav Rakshit is hoping for that to rub off on the Tech Mahindra Global Chess League, which is scheduled to be held in Mumbai from December 14-24.

“We are very fortunate that India is doing extremely well on the world stage. At some level the nucleus of chess is now moving towards India and that's a really good thing for a sport that we are excited about. We are running the league from Sunday onwards actually and the top players in the world will be here and they understand that India is going to inevitably become a big part of their chess life,” he added.

“So in that sense there is a lot of momentum that's there just driving chess in and of itself. But where does the chess league fit in because it's largely an individual sport and we talked about pushing the envelope. Every season we have tried to do some new things to make it more entertaining and engaging for the audience.

It's one of the only sports where you have men, women and young prodigies all playing for the same team. And that's kind of innovative and has worked really well for us that inclusivity because it also invites audiences to participate in a similar way. This season we are looking to do something completely disruptive which is we are looking to actually give audience members in the field of play headphones to listen to live commentary while the game is going on.”

Rakshit also revealed the FIDE, governing body of chess, was onboard with the revolution happening in the sport and more so in India.

“It's been an interesting journey with FIDE because you are right, chess has been played for a long time. I think the body itself understands that we are going through a revolution right now and there are a few key triggers to why chess has become as popular as it has.”

“Firstly, I think it's a cerebral game as you mentioned but the advent of AI has actually changed the way the game is played. It's a different game than the game I learnt growing up just because the boundaries of possibilities are now very different. It's also democratic because it's available to everyone to study which I think again was the purview of a few back in the day.

So that itself has been one of the tipping points. I think the pandemic was another big tipping point where a lot of people were forced to be at home and we had this surge of influencer driven momentum. People talk about Samay, Sagar from India but Alexander Botes, Gautam from the US, they are massive fan bases that were activated primarily during the pandemic in terms of at least getting to 10x of their skills,” he added.

Anupam Goswami’s take

Whatever numbers we have, we throw out great numbers. We are very low. Because for Pro Kabaddi, my colleague Vishal is here. He impresses me with very decent numbers all the time. But one number is that in season 12 we are at 1 million viewers on YouTube. And for any sport that’s still a very specific figure

in India. The thing is how are you going to monetize it? Because the monetization I think let’s understand. If there were Indies or how much, what is the proportion to be able to

monetize? Then it is like saying you have to have, let’s say garlic is good for your health. You have to eat tons of garlic to be able to understand the benefits.

Gourav Rakshit on Chess commentary

A big part of chess is the commentary actually because otherwise the board moves are really difficult at the level of super GMs. But with commentary that has really brought it to life and so our audiences are typically very high intensity viewers of our content. Obviously cricket has a very wide audience but in our case our audience isn't as wide but the audience that loves chess is very deep.