If you had a pot of money to promote Go, what would you do?
Or do you know of successful Go promotion projects in your country?
I feel that there are lots of people who would like to increase the profile of Go and lots of voluntary efforts. Would money help? How?
I’m thinking about Go in the west/counties where Go is not that widely known.
2 Likes
advertising? more prized tournaments? western professional circuits that can pay their pros a living wage?
3 Likes
of course money would help.
make a professional league, pay them big money. that will boost anything you wanted to boost
1 Like
film some movies, drama series, anime series
im sure you’ll get attention if you put in enough money into them
another way to promote is by promoting it thru casinos, bars, whatever you like it
whenever they win or answer correctly to tsumegos etc., you give prizes out
open 10 clubs in each city, each of them give them enough funds to promote go
and if they don’t meet the standards, the funds will get less and less
go clubs make them like pyramid schemes, the more ppl they invite, the more money they get etc.
the better they get at it, the more money they make from you
and you pay a standard salary to every go players according to their rank
life is easy when you have money
promoting is so easy when you have money
in today’s society, money means everything
maybe nobody likes go as a hobby, but if they get paid, everyone will join because they love money
if you put in trillions of dollars, im sure you can make the whole world play go just for the money sake
the reason that go isn’t popular is because it’s hard to make money from it
you know why stocks are popular? because money is involved
if you promote go games like gambling, like letting people bet with real money on pro games, then you can make money and promote at the same time
you should even give details+stats into each pro etc. etc. etc.
PS: money is everything
1 Like
If money is no obstacle, and you’re looking for the maximum promotional value, you might consider setting up a league of celebrity players. Presumably the level of play would range from mediocre to an outright travesty, but even a deal with the devil has an upside.
1 Like
Just more amateur tournaments that people can get to. In many places you’re lucky if you can get to one real-board tournament a month without driving or staying the night in rented accomodation – I can’t. To be honest, I’d rather not see a lot of money lavished on professionals who already have so many opportunities.
1 Like
While effective at growing the population of players, this seems like a sure fire way to change the Go community at large. Generally speaking, most people play Go because it means something to them. Or maybe they have a personal stake in it. But playing for money’s sake tends to reduce a sport/hobby/endeavor/activity to the lowest common denominator. Considering the great wealth of class that fills the Go world, at least in my personal experience, this seems like a great loss 
2 Likes
I would support more to OGS, and i for bigger prizes for EGF pros ^____^
2 Likes
I initially read prizes as pizza. I thought it was a great idea 
3 Likes
Maybe there is enough 
left for free 
for every tournament participant (not only the few pros the AGA and EGF have)
4 Likes
If I had a pot of money to spend entirely on Go, I would open a Go salon/ tea shop in my hometown
5 Likes
Amazing ideas! And what a range of thoughts. I suppose I should have said that I imagined a large amount of money for Western go but not an unlimited amount or even in the millions. Maybe a few hundred thousand max.
I was really wondering what practical projects would be best to think about.
I like the cafe idea and supporting tournaments. That seems efficient compared to paying people directly to play Go!
1 Like
A few hundred k doesn’t go far in today’s market without a good marketing strategy. Any venture would need to be profitable in its own right or else would fail in a year or two.
3 Likes
This right here. If I couldn’t do the entire KBA approach, I would invest what I could into reaching children. We can promote all we want, but there is that pesky issue that most people who play Go do not tend to stick around very long. On account that it takes a specific mindset, outlook, or personality to truly be attracted to Go for the long haul.
The best way to tackle that is to reach as many children as possible, given that they are open minded, generally want to try anything, and aren’t as selective with their hobbies or interests yet. Like creating Hakaru No Go to raise awareness of Go for a new generation in Japan, some form of effort aimed at mass grabbing the attention of kids would be my number one area of focus 
3 Likes
so is this a hint that the OP is a billionaire hidden behind the monitor and have loads of cash ready to spare?
2 Likes
hope so
2 Likes
Go clubs in schools would be best in my opinion. Chess clubs have been in high schools since before World War 2. Something comparable is needed for go. Our go club meets in a library, and the distinctive appearance of the game frequently attracts attention, especially from children. So, it is not hard to spark the interest, but an infrastructure is needed to follow up.
7 Likes
So the children are the future. And I’m sorry if I’m disappointing anyone with my lack of resources. It’s not my money I’m thinking about but funds like this:
http://tmhallfoundation.org.uk/
1 Like
If you had a pot of money to promote Go, what would you do?
It would depend on how much of a pot we are talking about.
As others mentioned, creating a playerbase of children is the key. To bring in children that will love the game, you need to entice the parents. I disagree with the viewpoint of “money is the key” … for me, in order for something like Go to provide actual value to the people that play it, they must see it as something above money, something more than profit … they must see it as something they love doing
Parents can be the greedy ones in the equation (and there are other things you could gain apart from money, e.g. in my country kids that participate in national teams of any kind get extra credit/grades for their university application scores ), but we’d need to promote Go in a way that the children would love it.
So, if money is not that much of an issue there are many ways of going around doing that. Off the top of my head:
a) establishing clubs at schools, equiping them with boards, translating and providing books and teaching materials to the teachers, is one way.
b) creating promotional content for Go that target a younger audience
c) having celebrities play and advertise Go, thus cleverly equate success with the mind-game itself
d) establish separate small competitive league for Go for all levels of players
e) connect the teaching of Go with the teaching of a foreign language like Chinese, Korean or Japanese
f) organise small Go events, but with some international attention and use Go to promote the cultures of the countries from which it flurished (if you can have the embassadors of the countries appear on your venue, that would be a good promotion, for example)
I could come up for more, but since we do not really have the money, it might be best for me to not take the dreams too far.
4 Likes