GothamChess signs with BASILISK as Head of Chess and he’s thinking bigger than you’d expect

Category: With 8 million YouTube subscribers, the world's biggest chess content creator has joined his first esports organization — and he's already dreaming of record-breaking creator tournaments. | Published: Aug 27, 2026 03:52 am As reported yesterday, Levy "GothamChess" Rozman has signed with esports organization BASILISK as its Head of Chess, marking his first-ever partnership with an esports org. It comes at a time when his YouTube channel has surpassed 8 million subscribers and he still has ambitions to be the Grandmaster. But why BASILISK — an org Rozman describes as a “renaissance of nerds” — and why now? Why BASILISK, and why now? Rozman has been offered the chance to join forces with esports organizations before. Other chess content creators have joined while he’s held back. His reluctance, he says, was deliberate. "I didn't wanna join an org just sort of because," he told Esports Insider. BASILISK changed the game on two fronts. First, he saw that his own identity matches the org's: "Everybody at BASILISK and the roster is almost like a renaissance of nerds. We are making nerdy games and nerdy activities cool, bringing them to the mainstream, and making them much more fun and maybe different than the way they were stereotyped for a long time." Second, and equally important, is that he isn’t just some content figurehead. Rather, as Head of Chess, his role means he’s in charge of both the competitive direction and the content strategy for the chess division. He has additional ambitions around community outreach and STEM education. The Esports World Cup connection Chess at the Esports World Cup has shown exactly what the game stands to gain from the esports ecosystem. Rozman pointed to Denis Lazavik, a 19-year-old Belarusian player who has had a breakout year almost entirely because of esports-style chess events. Lazavik earned third place at the Chess.com Speed Chess Championship in London earlier this year and finished second at the Esports World Cup, accumulating around $300,000 in prize winnings — an achievement Rozman says was only made possible because “chess is trying to become an esport. If these tournaments didn't exist, he would be at home trying to get invitations to go play places." Quite. The observation highlights a structural problem in traditional chess that’s kept a lot of talented players back over the years. Roughly 80 to 90% of elite tournaments are invitational-only, meaning players from smaller chess markets go unseen regardless of their skill. Esports-style events with open or broader qualifying paths change that dynamic completely, and Rozman sees BASILISK's chess division as a vehicle to push that change further. What Rozman actually wants to build — BASILISK (@BASILISK_gg) August 26, 2026 Is it possible for chess to attract so many viewers? Rozman — whose YouTube videos have generated billions of views — believes so. He has content ambitions he's deliberately keeping close to his chest for now but he was willing to share the sheer scale of the thinking. "I always think big," he said, adding that he envisions events capable of eclipsing "viewership of like three or four commas", (in other words, millions of viewers). One concrete area he did open up about in his interview is gender inclusion and STEM education. Before his YouTube career took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, Rozman ran a chess program at a school where the incoming kindergarten class saw more girls than boys playing chess: "That type of initiative of getting more young girls interested in STEM, whether it's chess or just anything, you know science, techs, math, that kind of stuff. I think we can easily do something like that." A non-profit or structured STEM partnership built around chess and BASILISK's existing science-focused identity is something he's actively considering, though no formal announcement has been made. GothamChess, gamer Rozman also gently pushed back on the idea that he's stepping into esports as an outsider. During the pandemic he played a significant amount of Overwatch, reaching Diamond rank. He's been following the space more closely since, including a chess game between League personality Tyler "Tyler1" Steinkamp and Lee "Faker" Sang-hyeok that Rozman reposted on X. Writer's take Considering where chess fits right now in the wider esports ecosystem, capturing Rozman looks like a content deal and more like a genuine organizational bet on chess as a competitive discipline. If Rozman follows through on even one of the creator event ideas he’s hinted at, the viewership ceiling — though admittedly high — is possible. As we’ve seen in the recent past, streams have already pulled massive numbers when the right personalities are involved. BASILISK, it would seem, have found the right person at the right time. Dot Esports is supported by our audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn a small affiliate commission. Learn more about our Affiliate Policy