I think the tournaments are good as they are important for the community. It would be interesting to know how much of the prize money comes from Microsoft. I suspect that Microsoft sponsors by far the largest part of all the sponsors. As @MahoganyHalo80 said most of the viewers probably already owns AOE4. So the effect of attracting new players is probably very limited. New exciting content is what will attract new players and keep existing ones playing the game long term.
@WiseConcil I think 1 to 2 full time developers for AOE4 could make quite a difference in terms of new content.
Besides they should expand the mod tools and make mod events like Aussie Drongo ( Map Making Contest For May 2022).