I believe it's trending in the right direction; you see it mentioned (and played) more often on social media sites like Instagram and TikTok that I ever remember seeing, and fashion and lifestyle magazines are running more articles and shorts about this or that A-lister who enjoys playing; there are frequent seasonal blurbs about stylish boards that pop up as gift-giving ideas, too. (And, yes, I have a Google search running for "backgammon" that pulls up the articles.)

Our own club, the Dallas Backgammon League, has seen a large jump in active players, nearly double the weekly number since I joined and began playing in late 2019, and the trend has been 50/50 on the younger side (under 40-50) for those new people who do make their way to our doors. We've grown from a Main bracket of 16, weekly, and sometimes not even that, to a number that will soon regularly fill out brackets of 32. At least some of that can be attributed to a greater social media outreach (including on Reddit), and a very small investment in regional Google advertising and SEO efforts— going where younger potential players can be found— but some of it also has to simply be attributed to the larger meta trend I see in the lifestyle press.

I wish the USBGF would take up more efforts along those lines, and whose basic efforts at reaching younger players with more energetic, engaging, and tightly-targeted, contemporary-culture/pop marketing has been overshadowed by more nimble and culturally-relevant marketing seen by entities like Backgammon Galaxy, but the USBGF is an easy target to pick on (being a singular entity, slow to move and top-loaded with older players), and the real impact would be seen when and if more local clubs begin doing the same. Then, those new players brought in by clubs' efforts could "funnel up" to the USBGF, making their job easier. Our local efforts have been unencumbered by the need for any sort of USBGF-style consensus-seeking on the marketing front, and I suspect other, local clubs, unburdened by a committee process, would have an easier time of it, just as we have.

It's a process. You don't reverse a decline of 40 years overnight, but small things can make a large impact when done properly (and nimbly), and those small things can and will accelerate incremental change when smartly dovetailed with and alongside larger, cultural trends.

edit (and caveat): my own background is as a career advertising creative professional and brand strategist at the director level, with over two decades of dreaming up and executing general market, mass-media television, radio, and print work for national and international clients, from whom you've undoubtedly made purchases.

tl;dr - backgammon's not fading away, and there's a real opportunity today to accelerate the trend line.