I’m glad this didn’t degenerate into name calling. En garde.
There are three major problems with your proposal:
1. You seem to be saying that we should pick which tournaments we host based upon the number of competitive gamers that attend the tournaments. My arguement is that it is totally irrelevant how many competitive gamers attend the tournaments. The bottom line is number of attendance. The approval of the competitive gamers should be an afterthought. A competitive gamer pays the same fee as everyone else. Numbers are numbers. The more, the better.
2. I don’t think you are giving our attendees enough credit. When a large number of people sign up for a tournament every time we have it, it is a reasonable assumption that lots of people really like the game. I would not call such a large fanbase casual; I’d call it enthusiastic. Just because somebody is not a competitive gamer, it doesn’t automatically mean they are a casual gamer. Most gamers fit in between the two extremes. I am also a bit confused by your belief that a large fanbase makes for a casual crowd. At the last LAN, Halo 3 was our most successful tournament. By your line of reasoning, the folks who came out for that game are casual gamers. I’m sure they wouldn’t take kindly to that.
3. You say that eliminating the Brawl tournament will result in more free play for fans of the game. In actuality, all we will end up doing is stir up resentment. After chucking one of our most popular tournies, all night long we are going to hear: “Wait. There’s no Brawl tourney? Lame.”
Edit: As for time problems, just explain to the attendees that, if there is a confliction, they might have to make a quick decision as to which game they like more. It doesn’t make us look rude; just efficient.