Agon Ltd. appoints commercial director to lead sponsorship for World Chess

10 September 2012

Agon Ltd. appoints commercial director to lead sponsorship for World Chess

Agon Ltd., the commercial venture that acquired the rights to the World Chess Championships earlier this year, has hired Chris King as commercial director.

Mr King, co-founder of executive search firm Sports Recruitment International, will lead the negotiations with a number of partners to sponsor and distribute the next World Chess Championships Cycle, which starts in London next March.

Mr King will continue his board and advisory role at Sports Recruitment International, which he co-founded 11 years ago. He joins Agon Ltd., led by founder and chief executive Andrew Paulson, this month.

His global network of contacts and relationships across the world will be invaluable in building a premium brand and working with best-in-class suppliers.

Mr King said: “I’ve seen many opportunities in the sports and entertainment sector in the last 11 years, but this was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

“I am enormously excited to work with Andrew and his focused team to help establish World Chess as a commercial proposition that can and should be in the same commercial league as poker and golf, for example.”

Michael Squires, chairman of Sports Recruitment Group, said: “Chris has put a tremendous amount of hard work into building Sports Recruitment International and will continue to remain as a key advisor to the firm and to work with some key clients. We wish him every success with this exciting new opportunity.”

Discussions are already underway between Agon and potential marketing partners in the technology, media, industrial and financial sectors.

Mr King added: “The unique brand values attributed to World Chess, coupled with the huge potential audience and blank slate for advertisers, make this a rare opportunity for sponsors and partners to associate themselves with a sport that is played by 605 million of the world’s finest minds.”

About the World Chess Championships:

The World Chess Championship Cycle is the pinnacle of chess and consists of nine events over two years: six Grand Prix tournaments, the Candidates Tournament, the World Cup and the World Championship Match.

The 2012-13 championship cycle will start in London in September with the first Grand Prix, to be hosted at Simpson’s-in-the-Strand from 20 September to 4 October. Succeeding Grand Prix tournaments will be played in Tashkent, Lisbon, Madrid, Paris and Berlin, and the World Cup will be held in Tromsø.

The 2012-13 Candidates, a double round-robin tournament among eight players, will take place in London in March next year. The winner of the Candidates will play the reigning World Chess Champion, Viswanathan Anand, in the World Championship Match in November 2013.

The long-term commercial rights for the World Chess Championship Cycle were accorded to Agon, founded by the media entrepreneur Andrew Paulson, by the World Chess Federation (FIDE) in February 2012. Mr Paulson is negotiating with commercial brand partners to sponsor the tournaments, allowing him to increase the prize fund to 5.5 million euros and to significantly expand the media coverage of the sport, with interactive broadcast on smartphones, tablets and online supplementing the highlights coverage on global television networks.

The design agency Pentagram has been hired to create new branding and design for
the cycle. There are an estimated 605 million chess players around the world, with enthusiasts including Sergey Brin, George Soros, Bill Gates and Mikhail Gorbachev.

For more information, please contact:
Andrew Murray-Watson, Mission PR
Tel: +44 (0)20 7845 7800
Mob: +44 (0)7515 695232
Email: andrew@thisismission.com

Jim Chaplin, COO at Sports Recruitment Group
Email: jc@sportsrecruitment.com