Are you familiar with the ancient Meso-American ball game Ullamaliztli? It was very popular. Spectators would wager huge sums on the games, sometimes selling themselves or their children into slavery. The losing team was often executed.
Perhaps there are some lessons here for enhancing the popular appeal of chess...
Maybe...so you're saying more blood and violence? What if every time a piece is taken, the player who lost a piece has to shock themselves with a taser?
... or maybe every time the player of the White pieces opens with the London System, the tournament arbiter should slap them on the side of the head?
It would be like "The Three Stooges Play Chess".
Good ideas...good ideas. Also the pronunciation of "fianchetto" will no longer be up for debate. There's only one way to pronounce it. The correct way. Any incorrect pronunciation of this common term will result in a lifetime ban
You have my sword.
Are you familiar with the ancient Meso-American ball game Ullamaliztli? It was very popular. Spectators would wager huge sums on the games, sometimes selling themselves or their children into slavery. The losing team was often executed.
Perhaps there are some lessons here for enhancing the popular appeal of chess...
I thought that it was an Aztec game (because they were known for human sacrifices, as far as I know), but you've reminded me of the children's book I read around 25 years ago where there was a reference to the game. That was the book:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/815218.Mystery_of_the_Maya
And to OP, just don't abolish classical chess, and it's fine by me. 
I thought that it was an Aztec game...
Older than that, I think. Olmec?
wait is this you? https://www.chess.com/forum/view/general/isnt-premoving-cheating-2
Nope. Can't take credit for someone else's aggravating nonsense. Although the name did inspire mine.
Don't let my supposed lack of experience fool you, this isn't my first account. My name is Dead Or-A_L_I_V_E (sorry, my mother insisted on hyphenating) and I am announcing my candidacy for the next FIDE election. I know what you're thinking, why is this nobody even saying such a thing? Well...
I first learned to play chess at age 7. My father Kaynight Or taught me how to play this wonderful game, and I have many good memories. Wins, losses, it felt like I was at home on the chessboard, learning about knight forks and pinned pieces. To see the shoddy state chess is in today makes me ill. Nowadays we chess players contend with discrimination, machines trying to take over our game, a clueless media who constantly makes a mockery out of our pasttime, and numerous other slights and atrocities.
Well, i have what I think are some common sense solutions to the many problems chess players face. For example, chess players who choose to imbibe alcohol and marijuana are being discriminated against. They only want to party hard while they play their games, yet they get called things like "cheater" and "dirty hippie" and "dangerous alcoholic", before being ostracized and banned from competing. My solution? Getting rid of the banned substance list. Its a relic of a time when people thought weed would turn people flat or cause baby seals to die.
I know some people are deeply concerned about the massive surge of bots and engines in the past two decades. These silicon rats are taking wins, points and ultimately jobs away from hardworking players. Those tech nuts who develop these things don't seem to realize progress is progress, be it up a mountain or off a cliff. Machine should work for human, not the other way around. If I were head of FIDE, I would devote time and resources to stopping the heinous takeover of my beloved game by a bunch of soulless machines.
All too often i see two characters on television playing "chess" while seeming like they don't even know what they're doing. Portrayed as geniuses and prodigies by writers who don't even know what a pawn is, these "games" look like they are played by a dirty, feces throwing lemur with the depth perception of a garden snail and cognitive skills of a dead rat. They're fraught with illegal moves, positions, and "checkmates" that wouldn't even end a game. I wouldn't stand for it, in fact, I'd create the FIDE Chess Media Accuracy Commission, or FIDECMAC for short, an organization to pressure Hollywood to hire real players to set these scenes up, making sure the game is portrayed as the fine art it is, not a farce.
Chess is seen as a boring game that only geeks and nerds play. Well, I know how to fix that. Consider the concept of "ring names" boxers and cage fighters have. If chess players had that, they'd be more respected. What sounds better, Magnus Carlsen or "THE SCANDANAVIAN SLAUGHTERER, MAGNUSSSSSSSSS
CARLSENNNNNNNNNN!!!"?
It would cost nothing to implement this tiny change. Why stop at board names, when you could add title belts too. And we could surround every chess board with a cage, if the budget isn't stretched too thin. These changes alone could get chess on ESPN. If poker is on TV, why not chess? At least actual skill is involved, rather than rich people with gambling addictions.
You may be asking how FIDE could afford all this. Well, the solution is simple. We start a casket company. Even during times of hardship, the demand for caskets has been higher than Willie Nelson. We also could do some kind of charity thing, or make a viral video i guess. I totally won't blow this money on weed, cheetos and MD 20/20.
Also I'd work to free Joe Exotic. I'm just saying, Joe isn't a saint, but he had three husbands and didn't feed any of them to a tiger.
In conclusion, though I'm frequently inebriated and have no prior qualifications, I hope you'll help me make chess the sports juggernaut it could be. Dead Or-A_L_I_V_E 20whatever: I Could Be Worse