Freestyle Chess is about to have a regular home on North American television. The tour has signed a partnership with Game+, the sports and gaming network from Anthem Sports Group, putting coverage in front of up to 3.5 million households in the United States and Canada.
The on-air launch is set for December 2026. That timing is not accidental. The weekly race for the last seats at the 2027 world championship is already back on, and the format now has a season a television audience can follow.
What Game+ will show
The first slate is highlights, not a live feed. Game+ will carry exclusive packages from the 2025 Freestyle Chess Grand Slam and from the inaugural FIDE Freestyle Chess World Championship, played at Weissenhaus, Germany, in February 2026. A run of documentaries will sit alongside those highlights, taking viewers behind the scenes with the players.
A second phase is already part of the deal: live broadcasts of Freestyle Chess tournaments. Game+ is carried on major cable outlets and digital platforms, and the same programming will also run on the network’s YouTube channel.
“Freestyle Chess turns elite chess into pure competition: no memorized openings, just creativity and skill from move one. Game+ speaks to a young, digital-first audience that loves fast-paced action, which makes it the ideal partner to bring Freestyle Chess to North America, with live tournaments as our next step.”
— Dr. Andreas Walker, CEO of Freestyle Chess
“Freestyle Chess is a truly dynamic format that completely redefines the traditional view of the sport, putting a fresh and unique spin on gameplay, with added emphasis on strategy and wit. Matches are exciting and tense, with highly skilled players and personalities that our audience will love.”
— Chad Midgley, VP of Content for Anthem Sports Group
The season is already on
Freestyle Friday returned on October 2. The weekly online tournament on Chess.com is streamed live at 17:00 Central European Time on the Freestyle Chess YouTube channel, Chess.com, and DAZN.
Six seats at the 2027 world championship are still open: three in the Open and three in the Women’s field. The first half of the series already sent Pranav Venkatesh and Anna Muzychuk to Weissenhaus, filling five of the eight places in each category. The standings from that first half carry over. Ten Fridays remain, and the order can still move.
“Formula One has its Grand Prix weekends. Chess now has its Fridays. With Freestyle Friday and our online qualifiers, the road to a World Championship becomes a season-long show. That’s the future of the game.”
— Dr. Andreas Walker
How the last seats are decided
Freestyle Friday runs every week from October 2 through December 4. The top seven eligible players in each field then meet in a knockout: quarterfinals on December 11, semifinals and the final on December 18. The winner of each field earns one place at Weissenhaus.
Two further online qualifiers award the remaining four spots, two in the Open and two in the Women’s field. The first runs from November 29 to December 3. The second runs from January 3 to 7, 2027.
Both championships return to the Weissenhaus Private Nature Luxury Resort on Germany’s Baltic coast. The Women’s World Championship is February 5–7, 2027. The Open follows on February 12–14.
Who is expected, and who is on the microphone
The opening Friday was billed with a strong list: Olympiad champion Nodirbek Yakubboev, Hans Niemann, Denis Lazavik, and Ian Nepomniachtchi in the Open, with Anna Muzychuk and Alexandra Kosteniuk among the names in the Women’s field. More titled players are expected as the series continues.
Each broadcast is hosted by a player who is also in the event. The commentary rota includes Maxime Vachier-Lagrave, Hans Niemann, Vidit Gujrathi, Anna Cramling, Dina Belenkaya, Oleksandr Bortnyk, and Sagar Shah with Harshit Raja of ChessBase India.
Bluebaum takes the first Friday back
The October 2 restart already produced a winner. Matthias Bluebaum took the Open outright with 9 points, clear of Oleksandr Bortnyk, Pranav Venkatesh, and S. L. Narayanan, who finished on 8.5. Venkatesh is already qualified, so the points that matter for Weissenhaus belong to the players still chasing a seat. In the Women’s standings, Rose Atwell took the week’s prize.
That is the product Game+ is buying into: a shuffled starting position, a live clock, and a table that changes every Friday. There is no opening book to lean on. Players have to think from move one, which is also why the games travel well on a screen built for fast competition.
If you want to see why the format feels different before the December broadcasts begin, start with what Freestyle Chess actually is, or play a random position against Stockfish.