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2012 World Championship Attendance by Country

Posted By: Bill Riles
Date: Tuesday, 18 September 2012, at 5:25 p.m.

In Response To: 2012 World Championship Attendance by Country (Daniel Murphy)

Thank you.

At least for me, a very informative, surprising, and telling tabulation.

I think much about our game can be inferred and learned herewith.

It is sad that so few, generally, attend; that so few Giants attend; and that there is such poor distribution and representation of players from many countries.

A number of things could be done differently, in my opinion.

1) It has been in Monte Carlo forever, that gets old -- no, that has gotten old.

2) Monte Carlo is one of the most expensive cities in the world. Not attractive for many players.

3) The tournament, in my opinion, should be moved. Ideally, it should rotate between four or five locales -- USA, Scandinavia, Japan, S.Europe/Turkey/Cyprus, and, maybe, South America. Within each of the four or five locales, the cities may vary as well. As an example, if the USA holds the tournament every four years it could rotate between LA, Las Vegas, Chicago, and NYC. Thus, it is in each of those cities every sixteen years. Becomes more of an event and players are more likely to go to cities they've never been to before.

4) Their should be more organized promotion by the directors on a global scale. Sponsor qualifying tournaments in all countries where backgammon is played -- for a nominal entry, players would play to win a paid spot in the world championship. For larger countries and countries with many players, there could be multiple qualifiers. This way many more could participate.

The Backgammon World Championship is not a "Field of Dreams" -- where you only must build it and the players will come. You have to make it attractive, promote it, market it, make it accessible. It is the only way to grow the game.

In its current state the World Championship in Monte Carlo is only a world championship by claim of name. A number of tournaments are larger -- the Nordic Open and the Japan Open, as examples -- and they draw quite well internationally.

It could regain it's former stature -- but only if it willing to change and adapt to the current game and the current world.

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