It will be interesting to see if Chess, or other boardgames for the matter, will benefit from streaming services as much as video games have.

I've seen the Chess-Network on twitch.tv break 1k viewers which is tiny compared to the 300k League of Lengends and Dota 2 tournaments but still a substantial amount regardless.

Chess Network broke 4.5k within the first two minutes of last night's game. I imagine it went higher but I accidentally fell asleep :(

Yeah, it got up to around 20k on at least one of the games.

I get really annoyed with the commentators on Chess Network, they have a tendency to overanalyze and talk way too much. The best commentator I've found is an Australian named Mato: youtube.com/matojelic

Your first sentence is confusing me, so I just want to clarify. Chess Network is one guy name Jerry who streams on twitch and uploads videos on youtube. http://www.youtube.com/user/ChessNetwork http://www.twitch.tv/ChessNetwork

Austrian?

He is European-born but has lived in Australia for some time now.

Chess champions come and go, but why would Magnus becoming the champion affect the game any differently than his predecessors?

The first obvious one is that he is from the western world. No matter what may be politically correct, that will be positive in the western world compared to a Russian or Indian having the title.

Secondly, he is young, athletic and smart, getting a lot of media attention.

What do you think about freestyle chess?