There are a few things you must take into consideration before thinking further about this matter:
One would be the rule that you stated - only 10k and above. There's a reason you don't see many amateur tournaments around in any game - the players are inconsistent in terms of their skill and their gameplay, making it highly unattractive to watch them, and making it very hard to predict the size of the audience that will be following that very tournament.
The second is closely tied with the first one. It would be the organisation of the said tournament. Newbie players would not be trustworthy enough to bet your resources on (spending money on arranging the whole tournament) as any one of them could (and probably would) either not come at all or just cancel it in the last minute, possibly ruining the whole thing. It would also require immense coordination to get everything in the order and plan ahead of time in order to avoid possible problems.
The crux of the above-mentioned is that you can possibly arrange a local tournament and make it happen, but a full scale official championship would be very difficult - if not downright impossible to make. I'd be very happy to hear your arguments that go for it, as opposed to mine.