Why would you even think this was being "abandoned"?
It has been less than a month since Round 8 completed.
I sent a message to all the team captains a couple weeks ago asking for input on whether their teams would prefer continuing as is or going into an 8 team finals. There are a handful of teams that wish to quit due to lack of interest/lack of players, but the responses I received made me see that continuing with this tourney was the right choice despite that. I asked that the captains who were struggling look for a few new players for their teams and informed them that the rule to be in at least 14 of the 17 preliminary rounds was being removed. Giving the struggling teams a couple weeks to pick up new players and taking a short break during the holidays seemed completely reasonable to me...
Now, before even waiting for me to respond to the PM (sent 5 hours ago), the Tournament Director is in here posting that there will be someone to pick up this tourney if "abandoned"; seriously? Maybe I should have been informed of this. I honestly don't even know what to think at this point as I never stopped working on this tournament and was planning to get round 9 started today. Now, I feel like my participation is not only unneeded, but unwanted as well.