A few thoughts on this. Who is the '2nd place'? The person who lost to the challenger to the champion? Or the champion if the champion loses his title?
Personally, it's really up to you all. If you have a first and second prize, someone's going to ask about third place, etc, etc... If someone doesn't like the prize structure, they're more then able to not complete.
A potential suggestion would be to charge a small entrance fee and allow others to contribute to the pot. Have a guaranteed first place prize as you do now, and divide up the pot in some ratio between the high ranking competitors. This lets you do it with the cost of a bit more logistics work (keeping track of entrance fees and collecting them) but also encourages people to bring others as it makes the pot sweeter.
Something likeÂ
1st place gets (standard price) + 30%
2nd place gets 30%
Finalists gets a split of the remaining 40%
Personally, it's really up to you all. If you have a first and second prize, someone's going to ask about third place, etc, etc... If someone doesn't like the prize structure, they're more then able to not complete.
A potential suggestion would be to charge a small entrance fee and allow others to contribute to the pot. Have a guaranteed first place prize as you do now, and divide up the pot in some ratio between the high ranking competitors. This lets you do it with the cost of a bit more logistics work (keeping track of entrance fees and collecting them) but also encourages people to bring others as it makes the pot sweeter.
Something likeÂ
1st place gets (standard price) + 30%
2nd place gets 30%
Finalists gets a split of the remaining 40%