But like I said above: SOMEONE in his inner circle was giving him advice that said, in no uncertain terms, he was going to lose HUGE piles of cash and ruin his brand value with a large contingent of the people who pay for him to play a game on national TV. If he was too uninformed, too opinionated, or simply too thick-headed to recognize that advice as having merit then, yeah, my opinion lines up closer to what I understand yours to be on the issue.
But if he did realize there was a significant chance he'd destroy his career over this, and did it anyway, I respect that quite a bit. I certainly wouldn't have that strength of character.
Still, a lot of my opinion of Kaep hinges directly on the issue of whether or not he was informed as to the possibility that he was risking future earnings by this stunt. I guess I never proceed from the position that 'Person X is stupid and/or uninformed.' That motto has definitely caused problems for me in the past, as it might do here, but I still prefer to start by assuming the people around me/interfacing with me are, generally speaking, rational actors capable of processing important information.
Then again, with all of the echo chambers and socio-political bubbles ossifying themselves in our social fabric, your theory might prove to be the correct one here.