Popularity of Chess

Yeah, but what I was saying was not that chess would compete with football.  I don't think anybody believes that.  But if Blitz matches were played Live on TV and on the internet on PBS or ESPN or wherever would play it, there would be some detectable audience for it.  And I think after it had some saturation people would watch a 1/2 hour show analyzing a GM game or two.  The general population doesn't play chess, but they respect it enough to watch it at convenience.

 Would there be a more prominent audience for chess tv if celebrities or soap opera stars played?

I am guilty of lots of chess books. There is always that awkward moment when a someone comes over...

"""""""Chess honestly is just not a very good spectator sport. Long periods of time with little activity (watching people think is not that entertaining). On the other hand, chess seems to have staying power, it seems as popular now as it ever has in terms of participation. Internet sites like chess.com of course are mostly responsible for that. I think it is a mistake to think chess will ever compete against football,etc. I wold bet however that chess has a significant advantage in the publishing world over team sports - just looking at my book shelf, there are way too many chess books""""""

this is true even simuls don't do very much for the average person that doesn't know a lot about chess.  i have seen some unexpecting people get caught up by watching speed chess games though--perhaps this is a way to get people excited about chess. 

Chess has lasted longer than football, baseball, and even playing cards. When soccer is but a distant historical memory and football and baseball are ancient games known only to scholars, chess will still be around.

It might even be as popular as chess tag-team wrestling, but we can only hope.

And chess roller skating?

Yes that is genius!  How about The Three Stooges playing chess while tossing pizza dough?  Now that's entertainment!

more knowledge about chess rules and regulations will make chess more popular

In our own simple ways we can make chess more popular. If you know people who are interested in chess teach them. If you have relative kids, teach them. If you are member of other forums, create a thread for chess. If you know novices(or terrible players) who like playing chess, help them improve so they will not lose their interest on chess..

Yeah but the fact is that most people don't like to do something they suck at. And with chess you're gonna suck for a while. There's a "humiliation period" like in many other things, but in chess it's long and hard.

The vast majority of chess players have learned when they were a kid. Back then being defeated by your parents wasn't humiliating at all. I actually enjoyed spending time with my father, not so much the game itself, but the "social" aspect of it.

quite a few, only by their gamertags though

Heres the thing.

An idiot can watch a sport game, and generally comprehend whats happening. (not saying sport is for idiots, most athletes are genius' in their own right.

BUT if an idiot were to watch a chess game, it wouldnt look any different to them than if they themselves were playing. 

Not only is chess extremely hard, but it also requires specialized knowledge to have an understanding of what is happening on the board, because to most people, even some people who do play chess, grandmasters are just moving pieces around.

Of course, this takes nothing away from how great the game is; it just makes it esoteric. Other games have a similar level of difficulty to chess, but at least the goal is more understandable. For example, in darts, you probably have no idea how on earth a pro is able to hit the triple 20 so often, but you are certainly able to appreciate the accuracy he is demonstrating, and the skill he " simply must need" to do what he does. In chess, the only indication of an achievement is when someone offers a handshake, and even then, non players probably don't assume that a non-verbal thing like that actually means resignation!

Btw, Kacie's tips (and the whole xtreme chess championship program) are great -- stuff like that is the best chance chess has of being accessible -- but even then, chess is so intrinsically inaccessible that I'm not sure how effective it will be.

I think the popularity of chess will dramatically improve if we can bring Chess Statistics into the frontline for audience who doesn't need to know much about the complicated details of chess middle games or finesse of chess end games. Please see some examples at point#9 of my post - 

http://dragonbishop.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-to-make-chess-more-dramatically.html

Chess is not a sport lol-it is a board game

Let's face it chess doesn't appeal to the public mass in developped countries. Here in Canada sport TV channels broadcast poker, billard, darts and bowling but no chess whatsoever. Even the newspapers doesn't have a chess column anymore. The world champsionship Carlsen-Anand had a small article that probably went unoticed by most people.

That's the state of chess in my country. No interets by the public. It's a marginal hobby.

How about like in boxing, they use a beautiful girl, she could walk around the match holding a sign announcing the details.

This sounds relevant to the other topic that I introduced -

http://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/how-to-make-chess-exciting-to-audience?page=1