The Prestige Gap
Why Cubing Needs Grandmasters
When people talk about the massive growth of chess over the last few years, they usually point to the internet or The Queen’s Gambit. But the real engine behind chess’s longevity is something much older: Prestige.
Chess has successfully branded itself as a “Country Club” sport. It’s viewed as the domain of intellectuals and the wealthy—a game of high status. Because of that prestige, it attracts serious money. You have billionaires like Rex Sinquefield building entire campuses in Missouri and sponsoring elite tournaments like the Sinquefield Cup. Parents are willing to pour money into coaching because being a “Chess Player” carries a level of social weight that most sports don’t.
The Problem with the “Esport” Label
There’s often talk that cubing should market itself as an esport. But esports, for all their popularity, often lack prestige. They live in a purely digital realm.
Cubing has an advantage that esports don’t: it’s tactile. Like chess, it involve mastering a physical object in the real world. It requires spatial awareness, basic reasoning, and intense muscle memory. To the outside world, both look like “smart person” activities. In chess, you’re moving wooden pieces; in cubing, you’re turning plastic.
The difference isn’t the difficulty, it’s the branding.
From “Fast Kid” to “Grandmaster”
Right now, if you see someone like Dylan Miller, he might just look like a regular kid who’s really fast at a puzzle. But imagine if he carried the title of Grandmaster Miller. Suddenly, there’s a level of intellectual authority there. Titles like Grandmaster or International Master create a ladder of prestige that parents and wealthy donors understand. It’s what gets people invested in the sport for the long haul. It transforms cubing from a “hobbyist thing” into a legitimate discipline.
Creating Our Own History
Chess has centuries of history to lean on, and while cubing is younger, we are at a turning point. We’ve already seen that the top people in both sports don’t necessarily view themselves as “geniuses”, they know it’s about dedicated practice and pattern recognition. But chess is smart enough to market that practice as “Mastery.”
If we want to reach the next level, get better sponsors, and impact more lives, we have to stop marketing ourselves as just a niche hobby. We need to embrace the Country Club model. By bringing a titling system into cubing, we aren’t just adding names to a database. We’re building the prestige the sport needs to survive and grow.
It’s time we stopped just being fast and start being Masters.