In my system instead of using arbitrary jumps between places I use a 33% increase for each place gained. So 1st place earns 33% more than 2nd place and so on. This is important because there are only about 10 premier tournaments a year so only about 10 players at most can win a premier tournament in a year. This system ensures that the prize money also flows down to the lower places as well so that non-champions can continue to hone their skills while being supported financially.
I'm gonna focus on Katowice because it's huge $400,000 prize pool dwarfs most other tournaments in the year. I think Katowice dishes out at least 20% of all the Starcraft 2 prize money for the whole year, probably more than that. I'll put the original prize money on the left and my alternative distribution on the right:
1: $150,000-->$40,000
2: $65,000 -->$30,000
3-4: $25,000 -->$22,000
5-8: $10,000 -->$16,600
9-12: $5,000 -->$12,500
13-16: $3,000 -->$9,350
17-20: $2,500 -->$7,000
21-24: $2,000 -->$5,250
25-28: $1,550 -->$4,000
29-36: $1,250 -->$3,000
37-44: $900 -->$2,200
45-60: $600 -->$1,600
I want to focus especially on the 13-24 players. These are the players that lost in the group stage. In the original distribution they only got $2,000-$3,000. The players were TY, SpeCial, Reynor, Trap, Parting, Elazer, Cure, soO, Armani, Patience, Has, and Lambo. Most of those players have won premier tournaments or made it to the finals of a premier tournament. Many of these players could have won the tournament if things turned out just a little differently. These are some of the best Starcraft 2 players in the whole world and they only made about $3000 in the tournament with the 2nd largest prize pool of the year (maybe the largest this year?).
It's really hard to succeed at playing Starcraft 2 professionally. That wouldn't change with a more fair prize pool distribution. It might even become harder because the increased financial support for non-champions would motivate other players to work harder as well as entice ladder heroes to try their skills in a premier tournament. But that's kind of the point. I'm not trying to make it easier to be a Starcraft 2 pro. I'm just suggesting a way to maintain a healthy professional scene and support the players that we love to watch and cheer for. For every tournament champion there has to be many many more non-champions for them to beat. A Starcraft 2 tournament wouldn't be very fun to watch if it was just the champion and no one else. So it's perfectly reasonable for the non-champions to be rewarded for the work they put in and the great entertainment they provide.