Serious question, not trying to be flippant but where are the fans and players loyalties?
On a personal basis the DGPT means nothing to me. I consume videos by CCDG and Jomez as long as they have at least a few top players on them. (I keep meaning to set up a Patreon account, that will be my new years resolution, sorry I haven't done this yet!) I don't watch the video because it is the Pro Tour, I watch it because it is a quality video of the top players. I only have so much viewing time so I tend to watch just top cards. i doubt I'm alone in this.
If Jomez/CCDG never filmed another Pro Tour event I would probably forget the series existed. That's not trying to be rude, I just personally have never really bought into it or the World Tour as anything more than a series of A tiers. I wonder if others have? I suspect from the outcry against this decision the majority haven't? I'm drawn more to Idelwild as I like watching the course than I am to Ledgestone as the layouts have interested me less, that both are on the pro tour are an irrelevance to me.
From a players perspective they get a greater prize pot potential from the Tour, however, in the long term media exposure seems likely to reap bigger rewards (i wonder how many Sexton Firebirds have sold off the back of big Sexy Commentary.) Paul mentions this in the recent interview. If even the players aren't that fussed about the increased payout potential are the fans?
The Tour was set up to make touring life easier with less travel between events, with higher payouts. All good moves for players. But again do the spectators care? It certainly gives something for the tour to use to get TD's to sign up to the sanctioning but beyond that whats the draw?
Who is the tour for? If it doesn't cater for the fans it can't produce the money and the logistics to cater for the pros. Are fans invested in the idea of the tour? I'm not seeing huge evidence to support this. The one thing a lot are definitely invested in is the media coverage given by three very popular videographer teams. They've now been cut loose.
There doesn't appear to be any bump in viewership figures on the Jomez pages for DGPT events vs other events filmed (if anything viewer numbers look slightly lower compared to other tournaments?) What is the fan draw to the DGPT Steve is banking on?
I can totally understand wanting to take control of the media side of things, but it will be interesting to see whether the media value of the Tour has been inflated based on the popularity of the videos released by non in house teams. My suspicion is the fans will follow the media outlets not the tour.
Whatever happens there are interesting times ahead!
