A summary of the 1st World Mind Sports Games which occurred in Beijing:

  • 15 days
  • 5 games: Bridge, Chess, Xiangqi, Go, Checkers
  • 2,736 attendees
  • 143 countries
  • China scored the most medals: 12 gold, 8 silver, and 6 bronze
  • 10,000,000 TV viewers a day

You may have missed that, so let’s just repeat: 10 MILLION people watched other people play board and card games every day, for 15 days. And the video feed was only available in Europe and the Far East.

(source)