Wow, this is huge. Out of all the new startup competitions these guys seemed to have the public edge. The competition structure itself was a bit of a let-down, but they had it all over WCG, ESWC, etc with their on-screen presentation. Admittedly it was still B-grade stuff compared to NFL, baseball, et.al, but was on par with extreme sports coverage and poker.
For me the big indicator was the forums. 1/2 the commentary on the forums were from team members. The fan base per team is non-existent (compared to other sports on the same tier). I would have thought the TV viewing numbers would have supported it though.
This is going to be a big setback. I can't imagine another company attempting a TV-centric competition in the next 5 years after this failure, so it looks like we're stuck with the old stalwarts for the time being.