aieraare you ignorant or just pretending that they weren't in mlg (and even in earlier evos)
those tournaments were literally one-third of the size if not smaller. you can get a 270-man tournament with a snap of the fingers and a decent prize number in 2016. even if there was this sudden up-and-down that's as extreme as you imply, it's still wildly missing the point; in 2013 people went to huge lengths to make melee into something huge (scar leading streams into the EVO donation drive, and travis spending all of his time to make the smash brothers documentary, to name a few), and while you can argue that didn't guarantee it, at the end of the day that effort still made sure it had a chance
if the counterpoints that are being made regarding "scenes succeed because people involved actually care" can only be "well sometimes the example isn't 100% like our situation!", then my point remains