The starcraft II commentators have gotten together to crowdfund what's basically a fantasy league where casters draft a team of all star players and then play out a team league tournament: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9sQxCFJw68&feature=emb_imp_woyt
Previous versions were funded by Blizzard but they've since cut back so the casters took it upon themselves to organize and fund the event and in just two days they've already raised $12,000. Bigger community to be sure, but there's no reason Memb, T90, OGN, Ornlu, and whoever else that still cares about aoe2 couldn't try to copy this. No Microsoft, no red tape, if the community steps up and it gets funded, great. If not, at least you tried.
Previous versions were funded by Blizzard but they've since cut back so the casters took it upon themselves to organize and fund the event and in just two days they've already raised $12,000. Bigger community to be sure, but there's no reason Memb, T90, OGN, Ornlu, and whoever else that still cares about aoe2 couldn't try to copy this. No Microsoft, no red tape, if the community steps up and it gets funded, great. If not, at least you tried.