It's hard not to reflexively feel this way but it's unnecessary concern. You need to appreciate the scope of what blizzard are trying to do with OWL.

My professional background is as a corporate lawyer. I've had the privilege of working for some major sports teams and organisations including being intimately involved in setting up an Australian organisation of a major motor sports tournament with buy-ins of over $1mil per car and over a dozen teams, the smallest of which had a turnover of $16million per year.

Being worried about blizzard damaging the scene by deterring smaller tournaments would've been like us being worried about damaging our market by deterring go-kart racing competitions from happening.

The scope of what Blizzard are trying to do doesn't depend on the success of the current overwatch e-sports scene. To succeed in this they need to build interest and a following far larger than what the people who would otherwise watch OW tournaments right now are relevant to.

They might fail, they might succeed. But the success or failure, or non-existence, of the tournaments around now is no more relevant to that than regional drag racing competitions are to a major motor sports tournament.