Baduk and the current Economic Crisis
World economy is shrinking. (As of early 2009.) What will be the results for our beloved game?
No sponsors, no tournaments, no games... What will the professional players do now?
Ten years ago: After the 1998 Asian Financial Crisis, activities became severely constricted. Now, however, the situation looks much brighter and poised for another take off. The Internet Baduk boom will playa large part in this. The KBA leads in Internet Baduk with live game commentaries, significant game appreciations, many technical essays and so on provided through the 'World Cyber Kiwon’. The rapid development of Internet Baduk makes advanced information and theory available to a wide audience. At the beginning of year 2000 the Korean professional players continued to dominate, with Lee Chang-ho' s third consecutive Samsung Cup, Cho Hun-hyun's Fujitsu Cup win which follows Yu Chang- hyuk's win of 1999, Korea's Nongsim Cup team victory and Hungchang Cup (Women's International title) victory. (
http://english.cyberoro.com/sub01_03.htm?menu=f11&divL=3)
Elements of crisis
Anyone who knows more please change/add! Outside the korean/japanese/chinese-speaking world there is a total lack of information about what is happening. So this is currently (as of June 2009) made out of bits and pieces I found somewhere.
Japan:
- Toyota-Denso Cup - main sponsor lost, discontinued acc. to weiqi.sports.tom.com (what happens with the worldwide preliminaries)
- Female Strongest - discontinued?
- World Amateur Go Championship - will be in China next year
Korea:
- New earning system
- Batoo - draining millions of dollars from proper baduk
- Baduk League - reduced (only 7 teams)
- Kiseong - discontinued?
- Etland Cup - discontinued?
- Osram Cup - discontinued?
- SK Gas Cup - discontinued?
- Wangwi - discontinued 2007
China:
- NEC Cup - suspended 2009
- Chunlan Cup - acc. JF, main sponsor may pull out (
http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9499)
Taiwan:
- Zhonghuan Cup - discontinued 2009 (
http://weiqi.sports.tom.com/2009-06-10/00UP/08533082.html)
Suggestions
Might it be possible for certain largish Go clubs out there to sponsor a professional to visit them? If enough people pool their money, it may be possible for them to receive tuition from an awesomely strong Go player. As long as all meals, acomodation, transport and miscellaneous costs are paid for, I would think that the most adventurous Professionals would like the idea of a holiday while this lull passes.
Tamsin: Any tournaments actually been cancelled? This page looks like groundless scaremongery to me.
John F. Read the press. Just off the top of my head, the Kuksu, Wangwi, Etland Cup and Baduk League have ended, several Chinese events have quietly dropped off the lists, and even at the amateur level the Japanese have switched the World Amateur to China next year. As this last example illustrates, even within tournaments that are surviving there have been cutbacks in game fees and travel. In Korea more and more sponsors are looking to supporting amateurs instead. The KBA case mentioned above likewise bucks the trend a bit because the KBA gets its money from the government, although the pros are trying to get their hands on it too, now. But, personally, I wouldn't have called it a crisis yet - it's more part of the normal ebb and flow and I'd see it more as a case of retrenchment after the reckless expansion of recent years. And even that could be seen as recovery from the previous "crisis" of 1998.
tapir: "In the final of 14th NEC Cup held on 2/28 in Shanghai, China, Gu Li 9p defeated Kong Jie 7p by resignation and won this champion for the fourth time. However, due to financial crisis, NEC Cup will suspend and Gu Li will become the last NEC Cup champion." ( http://www.gogameworld.com/gophp/pg_allnews.php?termvalue=financial%20crisis) Btw. the page is tagged as question, since I don't know the relevant languages. I am interested to see which professional association is less exposed to economic risk.
John F. tapir, at this stage I don't think any of the professional associations is exposed to serious risk, which is partly why I wouldn't call it a crisis. What might fairly be called a crisis, however, is the situation *within* the organisations. The top players are still earning big bucks, but most senior players in Korea and China are really feeling the strain (whilst, of course, also feeling they are being pushed out by young players who are scooping up the rewards that the older guys created over so many years). In China, the position of women in the pro ranks was a serious issue even before the credit crunch and has just got worse.
The most problematical issue is perhaps the position of young players. In an effort to take top position in the world, both China and Korea (the latter especially) have created a situation (e.g. by reducing time limits, easing promotions and entry qualifications) where the youngsters have benefited disproportionately compared to previous eras. It has been a bit of a Faustian bargain. Whilst Japan has fallen behind in the world rankings, at least they have most of the old structure (which suppresses the youngsters) in place and so are currently probably far better cushioned than the Koreans or Chinese, even leaving aside its higher GDP. Of course, the Japanese cannot afford to be smug. Their lack of world success is irritating many fans. The recent noises about newspapers considering dropping their go columns is probably, at this stage, no more than sabre rattling, a warning to the Japanese pros that they had better start chalking up some international successes.
Anonymous: Well now, seeing that every Pro is hungry for the win... we may see some really amazing development on the Go scene. I expect amazingly complicated Fuseki to be produced in secret in each Nation and even each Study Group. We may soon see underdog professionals attempting much more argessive play and a return to a Go knowledge Cold War. It's likely we won't see much as amatures, but once the world returns to normal, I expect that Go will only be richer for the experience.
willemien at http://www.godiscussions.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8717 (post nr. 7) Breakfast says "Koreans destroyed their pro system in 2009 and lost lot of sponsors. [...] At the end of 2008 lot of Korean pros voted for new system, which really means that they (80%) will never get any money in pro tournaments." I don't know anything more about this but maybe this decision is the cause of al the trouble. does anybody know more?
- tapir: breakfast wrote a lot more enthusiastic about the new system when it was introduced. (i don't know anything as well. i did hope this article would attract enough contributions, but it didn't. japanese, korean and chinese sl-contributors - or people with according language abilities and knowledge, where are you?)