Once the online qualifiers are over, no one really cares about the results
WTF ? Are you serious? You're saying that there won't be mass coverage of your trip to .TW for the Gigabyte Finals? that is what you are saying here; You are saying that after the qualifications nobody will be watch who will eventually when the event.

Did you see any coverage regarding the pre-selection rounds in Belgium for the GOOC contest?
nope. I only saw coverage of the events that transpired AFTER the qualifications. You are contradicting yourself here:p

There's only so much PR as the interest of the target audience. If you don't care what the enthousiast audience thinks about the competition, there's less PR.
that's because not all PR teams are enthusiasts; so they it's very possible can make bad judgment calls when looking at it from an enthusiasts' perspective! hey hey

they might also plan their events to collide with other competitions. It's like organizing the Fifa World Cup at the same time as the UEFA finals and the top players having to choose if they play one of the two competitions, making the competition at both end less interesting

Did you actually take the time to read my post?
did you read them ?