Why is the aoe3 competitive scene so small?

I've been watching some aoe3 tournaments (not that there's many) and its overall quite lackluster, this is in no offense to the commentators or players, I think the game is just inherently bad for competitive and attracting viewers. Just to point out the stark difference AOE2 competitiions have as much as 800k viewers whereas AOE3 has a maximum of 100k with most < 40k. If AOE3DE wants a solid competitive scene then I think there needs to be massive changes to the game to make it viewer friendly. However would players be open to that or would they prefer the game to stay as it is? What do you guys reckon and how can we support the competitive scene?