The Global Chess League, a joint venture between Tech Mahindra and FIDE, has announced a partnership extension with JioCinema as the digital partner for Season 2 which is set to take place in London from October 3 to 12 at Friends House.
As part of JioCinema’s continued commitment to take a league wider across the country, the second season of the Global Chess League will be streamed free to all viewers.
The first-of-its-kind franchise-based league features a total of six teams consisting of six players – one Icon player, two Superstar men players, two Superstar women players, and one Prodigy player in each team. Each team will play a total of 10 matches in a double round-robin format, with the winner of each match being decided in a best-of-six board scoring system. The top two teams will progress to the final, vying for the title on October 12.
Five-time world champion Magnus Carlsen, five-time world champion Viswanathan Anand, one of the world’s most popular players, Hikaru Nakamura, Grandmaster Anish Giri are some of the biggest names who have joined the line-up of chess stars who will be competing this season.
The Global Chess League will also set benchmarks for tech innovations in the sport as Tech Mahindra will explore unique fan engagements to promote the game, particularly across London and the UK by leveraging next-gen technologies such as AI, Metaverse, AR/VR, among others.
“We are delighted to continue our association with the world’s largest franchise chess league. Indian chess is at an exciting juncture, and we believe GCL will play a part in fuelling the growth of the sport furthermore. JioCinema will enable the league to reach a wider audience. We remain steadfast in our endeavour to innovate and engage sporting fans,” Hursh Shrivastava, Viacom18 Sports Head of Strategy, Acquisitions and Partnerships, said.
Sameer Pathak, CEO, Global Chess League, said, “We are delighted to have JioCinema onboard once again. Their support in the past season as streaming partners was tremendous and it allowed us to accomplish our mission of reaching the masses. We are delighted to extend our association with them in the second season as we continue our mission to spread chess across the world and set new standards for fan engagement.”
