Are they? The throwing sports? How many people do you know who regularly follow shotputting or javelin (outside of possibly the olympics). How much do the top 20 javelin throwers in the world earn in sponsorship and prize money and how does that compare to other actually popular sports.

I have no doubt that chess will remain at least as popular as javelin or shot-put for the foreseable future. I'm just not sure that counts as 'popular'.