I don’t think any of us can actually definitively know for sure whether bad behavior had any real impact on lack of sponsors, driving pub players away, etc. I’m inclined to think it was a pretty small factor compared to a lot of more important things.
That being said, you shouldn’t need the excuse of big prize pools and sanitized corporate involvement in order to treat people with respect lol. Tagg being driven away from this community isn’t sad because we lost a good player or because it’s an analogy for the thousands of other people like Tagg who could’ve made us a true esport, it’s sad because a human being suffered disproportionate abuse when trying to enjoy his hobby based on things beyond his control and basically no one cared when it mattered
Like Jesus we shouldn’t need self-interested reasons to not be racist, even if it’s not going to backfire on you at all it still isn’t acceptable, this ain’t that complicated