glassfor like eight seasons the incentive has been to get third or fourth, so this basically just lowers the risk for teams who think they might make playoffs but aren't sure. now they have to gamble only $40.
the point is this negatively affects froyo and ascent the most because they were always guaranteed a paycheck. but this could help invite last longer, which will help everyone in the long run.
assuming the prizepool is decreased proportionally to the league fees (i.e., roughly halved) and the distribution is the same, 4th place would get ~$165 each (down from $350), and making the total prize for the team a little less than $1000 (from $2,100)
to put that into context with past seasons, the prize for 1st place in open and IM have been $1000 and $1500, respectively (~$166 and $250 each)
if open prizepool stays the same, this would mean that there is even more incentive to sandbag lower divs and get a guaranteed check that way, than to play invite and risk not winning anything at all (for example, if you get fucked out of playoffs by literally 3 rounds for, as my team did this past season -_-)