Chess.com needs to take more cues from other live sporting events

I get that broadcasting chess is not like broadcasting football, but really there are a lot of basic things that the current broadcast gets wrong that are really very simple and it all starts with what we are here to see: WE ARE NOT HERE TO SEE THE COMMENTATORS. Sorry but this is a basic error that leads to a whole host of other problems. Screen space is always at a premium here, and I get you want to show the two players, although I also believe that is less important than other things.

The critical error that happens we see unfolding clearly in Toronto. Two games, but for some reason Chess.com decides they absolutely cannot put both boards up at once. What results is that you in essence follow neither game--you switch back and forth so you miss key points of both and end up feeling like you didn't really follow either. The second games of the semifinal in set 1 was an absolute debacle in this regard and this happens repeatedly in events Chess.com broadcasts when multiple games are happening at once and there is no excuse for it continuing to happen now. Get the commentators off the screen, we can handle disembodied voices just like in every other live sports broadcasts and use the screen space to allow people to keep tabs on. Instead we end up just scrambling to catch up on what happened while we were elsewhere.

Another cue from other events: better use of the screen space for in-game info. For instance, when you play a game on Chess.com you see instantly what material everyone has and who is up material. This basic information is not available on Chess.com broadcasts. Evaluation will show you opening names based on the moves. This basic information is not visible and must be spoken out loud by the commentators. Move number has been added in some spots, this is good info in particular when we have tournaments where more time or a change in increment happens on a particular move. For the former--how many moves does a player need to make to get to the additional time? And a bigger ask that probably is beyond capabilities at the moment: use the databases to let us know how rare positions are at top level, in general and for the specific player. All of this info of course cannot be on the board at the same time--you move through it.

Some more tips: when multiple games are going, we don't need to go full screen to watch the players put the pieces back on the board and then leave. That's what reply is for when nothing else is going on--immediately switch to games still going.

Full-screen views of a chessboard from the side are not interesting. If you want to use that shot to break things up, substitute your player shots for it but always keep the board up, particularly in rapid/blitz formats when things move fast.

The bottom line is that right now it is hard to shake the feeling that in tournaments with multiple rapid/blitz games going at the same time (aka the future of chess) you end up not really getting a good feel for what happens in any of the games.