Chess Life Advertising

Someone recently made a comment to me exposing the fact that I rarely look at the ads in Chess Life. That's not good, because it's a reasonable way to keep up with the commercial side of chess in the U.S. Since December is a big month for retailers, I decided to investigate all of the ads carried in the December CL. I excluded the classified ads because I had looked at those in a 2006 post titled June Chess Life.

The USCF ad rates are online -- see USchess.org's Advertising -- with rates for both the magazine and the web site. The page starts, 'Membership and Demographics : The US Chess Federation has 85,000 members, of whom 35,000 are adults and 50,000 are youth or scholastic members. The population is predominantly male. Adult members are generally college-educated and affluent.'

The best locations in the magazine were occupied by heavyweights in the business side of chess:-

• Inside front cover (left full page, color): Chessmaster.com
  
• Inside front cover (right full page, B&W): NewInChess.com
  
• Inside front cover (quarter page tearoff card): HouseOfStaunton.com
• Inside back cover (full page, color): HouseOfStaunton.com
  
• Back cover (full page, color): Chessbase.com

The rest of the mag carried the following advertising, not counting tournament ads or USCF ads for member services:-

• InsightCruises.com/Chess; chess cruise (GeekCruises.com).
  
• ChessMagnetSchool.com; chess training.
  
• ChessUSA.com; products.
  
• USCFsales.com; USCF Online Store.
  
• MerchantAmbassador.com; Kasparov Grandmaster Series chess sets.
  
• WholeSaleChess.com; products.
  
• 'Tasty Treasures' recipe book.
  
• MegaChess.com; products.
  
• Monroi.com; electronic products.
  
• HouseOfStaunton.com; again!.
  
• ChessOK.com; chess software.
  
• ChessMate.com; products.
  
• NAChess.org; North American Chess Association.
  
• ICCF-US.com; correspondence chess.
  
• Chess4Less.com; North American Chess Association
  
• WorldChessHallOfFame.org; World & U.S. Chess Hall of Fame.
  
• RandomHouse.com; 'Treasure Chess' by Bruce Pandolfini.

It's not too surprising that all but one ad had an associated URL.