pine_beetleIt's true he'd be competing with esea but managed correctly it could do really well. Honestly I don't think competing with esea would be very hard if you had the right group of people. Especially if you get highlander the entry fee for that league can go down quite a bit around $10 per player for growth off of the first season.
I don't think there is a sustainable free to play model that will actually work.
I really doubt anyone's ability to compete with esea. CEVO had people who were super knowledgeable about the scene and they still crashed, burned, and fucked over the tf2 scene as a whole.