Regular tournament attendees of any venue for KoF XIII in our region are going to be discouraged from playing because they'll likely discourage new players from participating in the event. However, they're invited to play casuals.
Let me run some statistics for you. At Southtown Arcade, our average attendance to our Sunday tournament was on the slip. From one season to the next, we lost more and more people. The reason? The skill gap. They didn't even come to play casual events. Right now, although there were atleast 5 or so players in the area near Starbase arcade, none of them showed. It's a waste of money for them. That's the reality. We played round robin because we only had 6 players who bothered. That's fact.
I'll give you another example. More than a year ago was the last arcade version tournament for KoF XIII. The owner and I put in an additional 50 dollars each (100+) into the pot. I posted everywhere I could an shamelessly advertised the last day to play arcade version KoF. Only 10 people showed, all regulars.
When events were run in the area of my choosing, nobody showed up. Why? Nobody played the game, therefore there was no money. See the trend? Although new players would like to play it competitively, there's nothing drawing them to play. There's no ignition. Although it's not a lot of money, 100 dollars into a pot just for players to try out the game is a draw. They're not wasting money because it's not their money to waste.