there was never an obligation for MSI VGA Card, that's not in the rules.
buying a good clocking CPU and capable memory is logic and doesn't matter what company is organizing the contest.

Not only the motherboard has to be bought. Those who don't have a good cpu are obliged to find a new one and, thus, have to spend even more money.
yes giving away free hardware is sure way to gain money... right? ;p

Making people buy their gear makes things more profitable? I think there's only a very few people who actually bother to BUY a motherboard just to be able to compete in the national qualifier.
tell me how it would look if none of the winner(s) of the qualifiers used MSI products to obtain top results.
try to sell that idea to your marketing director.