Carlsen is the best/only hope for chess to clean up its act (reinventing FIDE and the Candidates process), and market itself to the broader Western public, much as poker has been marketed. Keeping my fingers crossed.
With the right backing, chess can definitely be as popular as poker. Big-money TV poker is very much a modern creation. Even big-money basketball is a "creation," not a founding plank of US culture.
I'm not really a chess player, but I've watched all the matches this Championship, and all my friends (not chessplayers as well) are watching. It helps that we are Norwegian, though. And that may be the point: A western player will bring back the popularity in the west.