Caruana also used his Twitter post to congratulate Karjakin “on a well deserved victory,” showing the kind of manners that Bobby Fischer, the last American-born player to win the world championship, in 1972, was not known for.

Chess has come a long way since the days of Fischer, who sulked when he lost, gloated when he won and forfeited his title in 1975 when he declined to defend his crown.

The economics of chess have also moved on. Fischer’s Cold War showdown with Boris Spassky in 1972 in Reykjavik, Iceland, was preceded by bitter wrangling over money, with Fischer agreeing to play only after he had secured a doubling of the world championship prize fund, initially set at $125,000 (the equivalent of around $700,000 today).

Ilya Merenzon, the chief executive of Agon, which holds the worldwide licensing and marketing rights to a series of tournaments held every two years to decide who is the world’s best player, said the prize fund for this year’s title match in New York would be 2 million euros ($2.2 million).

The rise of the personable Carlsen, who has been named one of the world’s sexiest men by Cosmopolitan magazine, has provided a dash of glamour long missing from a game often associated with the introverted or the plain odd, like the reclusive Fischer, who spent his later years spouting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

“We are selling an elite event that we hope will be part of the global news cycle,” Merenzon said in an interview. He also noted that far more people around the world played chess than played golf, which he described as “much more boring than chess.”

That chess has a passionate following was clear from a controversy that erupted during the Moscow tournament, which ended on Monday.