I don't think it really is a chicken and egg problem though - hardly any of the competitive scenes for the biggest games historically got bootrapped like this:
Counterstrike: Organic community, Valve only started putting effort/money into it after it had already proved itself.
Starcraft: ditto
DoTA: ditto
AoE2: ditto
Smash: Nintendo is practically actively hostile to the competitive community, it persists regardless.
DoTA 2 and LoL arguably weren't bootstrapped either - they relied on players jumping ship from the already existing and proven OG DoTA scene.
It seems you are arguing that the _competitive scene_ exists, which I dont dispute. I was under the impression we were discussing the _ability for a player to play the game as their career_. i.e. The equivalent of a pro sports athlete but for a video game. The players are for the most part going to move to where the money is (and esports are unique in that way, where skillsets are more transferable between games).
That said, DOTA 2 is a large part of the current "esports" wave of payout-driven hype trains. The International was an unabashed marketing play to drive interest ("It drew attention due to its staggering $1.6 million USD prize pool, the highest prize pool of any single esports tournament at that time." [1]).
Counterstrike: Organic community, Valve only started putting effort/money into it after it had already proved itself.
Starcraft: ditto
DoTA: ditto
AoE2: ditto
Smash: Nintendo is practically actively hostile to the competitive community, it persists regardless.
DoTA 2 and LoL arguably weren't bootstrapped either - they relied on players jumping ship from the already existing and proven OG DoTA scene.