>i understand giving the runner-up the regular season money.
>its an aggregate and everyone had the same opportunities to
>score points all year.

Word.

>but im just honestly not seeing another logical, mathematical,
>and inherently valid way to award tournament money when one
>guy has no skin in the game. tilting it toward being in an
>easier conference is not the answer. it raises everyones
>probability on that side of the bracket, even assuming random
>distribution. thats inherently not a fair bet. shawn has
>gambled, he knows this.

Well, if we actually had a way to do a '3rd place' between the conference finals losers, I guess we could go with that and they could get the runner up pot. Technically, I 'could' rig the site to get boxscores maybe (sometimes it works, sometimes it won't calculate it) to see who would win. And the GM's would have to stay active through the finals but this seems a lot more work than just letting whomever makes it to the finals decide.

What you see as a tilt, is what I see as luck of the draw. If Shawn had paid or someone else played in his spot and paid, you'd still have the same obstacle and if you lost to him, would still be a better team than most in the Black Conference but you wouldn't get no cash. Only difference here is Shawn can't get any money so whomever makes it there opposite him gets the whole pot.

Beat who's in front of you and this won't be an issue. Ultimately, you're going to have to do better than "we should all get a refund" though.