IEM 2013, sad view.

[adas7]

Just came from there and didn't notice not even half of computer that was QL on it. There was about hundred computers witch plenty different games, but no QL. What happend, that QL dissappeared from main stage, but even dissapeared at all from back stage. Is this game really dying? or there was some other "political" reasons to ban it from IEM. Only thing that was poorly connected with QL was RAGE commercial. There was even UT3 competition, F1, FIFA, BF, CS, but no QL. REALLY SAD .

[Chibers]

Lack of steam views and the huge financial push that LoL got to get into tournament circuits kinda killed QL for IEM iirc.

100k+ viewers compared to... 8-12k with QL.

[adas7]

OK, but what with back stage, there was big competition WoT, this has more viewers too?

[drunkenFooL]

Many stories about this. Do not be offended, but it is kind of old news.

From June 2011:
http://www.sk-gaming.com/content/337...rop_Quake_Live

http://www.killergaming.com/blog/201...treme-masters/

http://www.derquaker.com/derquaker-interview-carmac/

etc etc

Maybe the answer(s) you seek will be found in those stories or similar articles?
or what megaman3 posted below....

[megaman3]

Answer is Q3/QL was on IEM until 2011, when the game was dropped because of lack of viewers (5k to 10k tops).

Supposedly syncerror offered them the same amount of money riot games did with LoL, and IEM rejected it. TBH I think that is a huge lie considering id software has not directly sponsored a single tournament to date (1month premium account is an insult. Quakecon is sponsored by other companies and is organized by the community) and QL could have been on the back stage anyway.