AQuad-City Times Davenport, Iowa Wednesday, June 28, 1972 - Page 2
Chess Interest Grows
New York (AP) — Promotional aspects of the Fischer-Spassky world championship chess match are becoming as important as they are in any big league sport.
Chess matches are not usually world happenings. But with the keen interest sparked by American Bobby Fischer challenging Russian Boris Spassky for the world title, it's a different situation.
The Icelandic Chess Federation has put up close to $200,000 for the 24-game match, to be held for two months in Reykjavik, Iceland, starting July 2.
THE GAMES will be played in the Reykjavik Sportshall, which seats about 3,000 people. The match will be open to the public, and tickets will cost $5 a game or $75 for the 24 scheduled games.
Of the $200,000 put up, some $125,000 will be paid in prizes to the players, according to the federation.
Fischer, 29, and Spassky, 35, also will divide 60 per cent of the income from films and television.
The federation has signed a 99-year contract with Chester Fox and Co., Inc. for exclusive worldwide visual rights, including rights to film the match and still photos of the match taken inside the Sportshall.
Fox and the federation will split the profits equally.
The price Fox paid for the rights is undisclosed. But he did say he would have to spend some $200,000 for the color filming.
“I GUESS its a coup, but it's quite an undertaking,” Fox said in New York.
He has asked for bids from interested television stations in countries throughout the world. He is concerned with the highest bidders in each country, and if a contract is signed, he will send them film clips as the match progresses.
In the United States, ABC has contracted for exclusive film rights. The Fox film segments will be shown Saturdays on the ABC program. “Wide World of Sports.”
However, in the United States, Channel 13 — WNIT, New York — and Teleprompter Cable TV have planned programs discussing the action at the match, without the use of the Fox film.
CHANNEL 13 plans a move-by-move commentary and analysis on the match by chess master Shelby Lyman who will work from a studio in Albany, N.Y. using vertical boards to illustrate the moves.
The extensive coverage would start Sunday, July 2 and run from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m., nationally. It would continue three times a week throughout the match, with shorter broadcasts Tuesday and Thursday for cities on the Eastern seaboard.
Richard Gitter, lawyer for WNDT, said Fox and the federation threatened to go to court, if these plans were not abandoned.
[Note: I had never heard of an event open to the public, i.e., boxing, wrestling, ice skating, hockey, baseball, et cetera big sporting events that forbid spectator photographs. But the Soviet saw to it that this match was completely censored from history. The Icelandic Federation forbids personal photos… then, would conveniently proceed to set up noisy camera men to guarantee Fischer will call off any prior agreement about cameras, which further results in Fox, suing Robert J. Fischer, personally, for 3.3 million US Dollars]
