Is chess less popular than it used to be?

I was talking to my dad yesterday about how the relationship towards chess was different in the 60's-70's. The World Championship, tournaments and etc. were closely monitored and the games from them were thoroughly examined on the TV. But nowadays chess is underestimated as a sport, there are no more televisionised reports of any chess events, not even the World Championship(at least in Croatia). So my question and this topic is about your opinion, is chess really less popular than it used to be?

Thanks for your thoughts, Jazo23. 

I agree, between chess and let's say I don't know, Call of Duty, we know that they'll choose the second one...But its never too late, I discovered chess only 9 months ago, till then I was one of those Call of Duty maniacs 

Before the Fischer boom, there were many chess clubs here in New York state.  After the 72 match, club size exploded--we went from 5 to 8 players coming to our club to 350+!  We were able to keep around 20 for some time (@ a year), but it died quickly--we were soon down to 4 to 5 players after two years.  Since then, I have noticed that many towns that used to have a small but dedicated chess community have no club (and no active community) at all.  Here in Binghamton there are two colleges, but no official chess club--just a couple of places where some players meet on Tuesday or Friday night.  In the nearly 40 years I have been playing tournament chess, I would say that levels of players have dropped below what they were before the Fischer boom.  So yes, I would agree with your statement that chess is less popular than it used to be.

Indeed, and that's a shame that people don't understand the beauty of chess. In my opinion another thing that influenced chess is money. If there were more investments in the past, maybe it wouldn't be treated merely as a game in our societies.

The number of players playing here on chess.com is probably higher than it was in the 1970's.

I'd pick playing online over having to go to a club at inconvenient times and look for suitable opponents who might or might not be there, any day.

I would ALWAYS pick playing in tournaments, or with my friends in a club, or even bringing a board with me when going out on a cup of coffee...do you know what we're doing here in Croatia? Every day, we're bringing a chess board to school to play chess at least during recess for 5 minutes! This is love towards chess 

Maybe I am lacking in true love for chess then. I don't ever carry a chess board, although if someone else brings it I might play an occasional game in a cafe or on a beach.

Over the years I have watched the bookshelf size in the bookstores that deal with chess shrink.  In the last ten years it has gone from the two bookcases to a single shelf.  I have noticed this trend in every bookstore I see.  I would say that is a pretty good barometer of chess popularity.

Yes, chess is neglected. Well, chess is a game where it doesn't matter whether your rich or something like that, you only have the board in front of you, that is your world in that moment  that's only one of many reasons why we play chess eh? 

I agree Osiris27 and that's a shame 

I carry a small board most of the places I go as well. I think chess is less popular now in some part because of the common views toward it taught by uninformed people. Many seem to think chess is boring because it is often boring to watch. People also seem to think you need to calculate 20+ moves or so in advance to play it so only smart people can play. I find these to be common views that discourage people from giving chess a chance.

Yes, people are pretty much narrow-minded!

Of course, back in the 60's & 70's during the cold war you had matches between American & Russian players, so I'm sure more people were interested as a matter of national pride.  Of course, back then there weren't many video games, no internet, and most people only had about 3 TV channels to choose from, too.  I think like just about any hobby these days, there is just way too much stuff out there diverting our attention.  Why would someone want to learn to play chess, which they may see as a boring old board game, when you have a few hundred TV channels to choose from, billions of internet websites & chat rooms, and your choice between Xbox, Wii, and Playstation?  No, I think only the people who play chess are the ones devoted to it.  But that being said, there are quite a few members here chess.com.

I  think that chess would be more popular if every time you took a piece that piece screamed in agony and then exploded.

I believe that already exists somewhere on the Internet.

My guess is that OTB chess and organized chess are on the decline.  However I think some of the indicators mentioned in this thread are flawed.   The fact that TV does follow matches is partly due to the fact you can watch the matches live on the Internet and interact with other people watching.   The number of books in bookstores is also due to people buying books on the Internet and people using commuter software and data bases to study chess.

Chess is still popular, there will allways be changes.

In my country chess is more popular than ever! The elite brings new players to the game!

When Simen Agdestein (the first GM in Norway) started the norwegian chess school we had only a few tidled players.

Today we have 10 GM's, 22 IM's and a bunch of FM's!

You would also have to take a look at the most populous country in the world, China.