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Image Credit: BASILISK With 8 million subscribers on YouTube alone, Levy “GothamChess” Rozman is the biggest chess content creator worldwide. After decades of dedication to the game, the “Internet’s Chess Teacher” has now joined his first esports organization, BASILISK , as its Head of Chess.
In an exclusive interview with Esports Insider, GothamChess shared his motivations behind the move as well as how chess can benefit from intersecting with the world of esports.
Esports Insider: This is your first signing with an esports organization. We’ve seen chess becoming more and more popular in the esports space for some time now. So, why did you choose to sign with an esports organization now, and why did you choose BASILISK specifically?
GothamChess: I think the fit was really good. […] There’s been content creators in chess that signed with, I think, even multiple orgs since then. The reason I didn’t necessarily, and I think now I have […] is, for me, everything I’ve always done over the years has been: I focus on my content, I have my educational platform, I’m writing books…
Like, I wanted to make chess as accessible as possible to the millions, and I don’t know, maybe even billions of people that are getting into the game all around the world. I didn’t wanna join an org just sort of because. […] I think what I really like about this partnership is two things. Number one:
“Everybody at BASILISK and the roster is almost like a renaissance of nerds. We are making nerdy games and nerdy activities cool, bringing them to the mainstream, and making them much more fun and maybe different than the way they were stereotyped for a long time. I mean, there is no greater example than chess, in my opinion. So, I think chess fits perfectly amongst the StarCrafts, the Magic: The Gatherings, the STEM, the science that BASILISK focuses on.”
And the second thing is, I get a leadership role. I’m not just like, “Oh, we have a chess guy, and he’s gonna make some stupid content somewhere, and we’re gonna try to go viral.” I mean, we will try to do that. It’s not gonna be stupid. I’m in a role where I’m on a team of players who are going to try to get as many points as they can in the Esports World Cup and all these chess events as it does its best to become an esport.
What non-chess games does GM Vincent Keymer play? pic.twitter.com/yIgjDyIyRI
But I also want to be responsible for directing and making interesting content. And last but not least, if we can use chess to collaborate with different games or different organizations or different people or start a non-profit or build different STEM programs with chess and everything — that’s the stuff I wanna do.
Image Credit: BASILISK Esports Insider: Do you have anything specific planned already that you can share?
GothamChe…