'In pandemic, we started to stream Chess online & that brought a lot of new people': Vidit Gujrathi

second season of Tech Mahindra Global Chess League created ripples across sporting community over past 12 days with anor thrilling edition in London, and stage is set for an all-important Championship Final between defending Champions Triveni Continental Kings and PBG Alaskan Knights on Saturday. Ahe of highly-anticipated Final, league's Chairperson Peeyush Dubey and upGr Mumba Masters' Men's Superstar Vidit Gujrathi attended a virtual roundtable with UAE media and spoke on success of season.

Dubey pointed out that London as a venue lived up to hype and built on legacy and trition that was started with first season last year in Dubai. "We laid a wonderful foundation in Dubai with season 1. That's where it all began. And London has followed up with right spirit. It's a great, historic city, with lots of energy and passion. As league is maturing, we are witnessing great fan engagements here over last few days which has led us to today," he said.

"It's been a great experience. At end of it, I think it is chess that that is winning and that is objective of Global Chess league. We want everyone who loves sport to win," Dubey ded.

Meanwhile, Vidit, whose franchise could not make it to Final this season, praised chess community for evolving over years, and said he is delighted to see everyone doing ir bits and pieces to popularise sport.

"I think everybody is doing ir own bit. In pandemic, we started to stream Chess online and that brought a lot of new people. re was a stereo of chess players being in a certain way, and that was broken when people saw us just chilling and enjoying ourselves. It created a very close, tight knit community and y are still following games," Vidit said.

"Following India's historic Olympi win in Budapest, we moved to Global Chess League, and now Gukesh will be playing World Championships soon. A lot of eyeballs will be re and Indian chess will continue to grow. Everything is automatically falling in right places. A couple more major tournaments in India might complete perfect picture," he ded.

To furr d to Vidit's pointers, Dubey furr pointed out biggest challenge with league, and ded how modern-day streaming platforms paved way for Global Chess League to happen. He furr highlighted important role played by Tech Mahindra in bridging gap between sport and audience.

"Over last few years, way audience is engaging with content has changed. We are in third generation of brocasting with streaming platforms taking over. Streaming allowed for several sports to become a lot more available. Hundreds of thousands of people are just watching ors play Fortnite or Minecraft. We realised it is possible to actually create a league for a sport like chess. challenge was to make it more widely accessible like football or tennis. And with wonderful team at Tech Mahindra and Global Chess League, we have attained feat using modern technology and an engaging, innovating format," he signed off.