I'm not sure if I'm just failing reading comprehension, but I have no earthly idea what you're talking about. HC3 has an essentially similar qualifier to NAC3.
9 total players went to NAC3. Of these, 7 were direct invites (Hera was a direct invite, and he's the only one that paid for himself). 2 came from the qualifiers, which... were top 16 single elimination. As in, only the top 16 players could qualify for the qualifiers, where the seeding was done by a set of admins.
In HC3, 8 total players are invited, and 8 will come from qualifiers. These qualifiers will be the top 32 players, which are determined by ladder ranking.
In other words, HC3 will take more players from qualifiers, and will feature twice as many slots for the qualifiers compared to NAC3. The only difference is how the seeding/positions are determined - I'm not seeing how that makes one more open than the other. And as to whether ladder position or admin seeding is more fair, that's a really hairy question. Sure, ladder shenanigans are more possible, but it also means that no (or at least, less) admin bias - that is, with rating deciding who plays, there's no chance of admins picking their favorite players.
Additionally, as to why the tournaments "cater to the 0.1%" - you yourself note that the tournaments are sponsored by the viewers (or MS, who cares mostly about getting more viewers). Note that this means they're not sponsored by the players. The community of casual players/viewers thus has power to drive the tournament settings, and like you said - they're often fans of the highest level, most famous players. It's not surprising that it doesn't cater to the community of aspiring high-level players, even if I agree that it's can be somewhat unfortunate and possibly not great for encouraging new players to aim higher.
So Nac3 qualifiers https://www.aoezone.net/threads/nac3-qualifier-sign-up.162392/ was not an open bracket anyone could sign up however only top 16 were allowed to play. I did not realise.
I will edit my previous post. Thank you for pointing out my incorrect information.
However please also note I am referring in large part to qualifications into the main-events. Not the finals themselves.
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