No more prizing for online tournaments?

I have recently started looking at participating in online tournaments in order to make myself better as well as earn some RP. Now i have learned that Riot will be taking away the prizing for tournaments like this in order to promote more "Live tournaments." I just have a few questions and wanted to talk about it with other people in my position. I live in the middle of no where and it is very unlikely for any kind of "live tournament" to happen near me without needing to drive several hours to participate. First, i'd like to know if Riot is really taking away RP prizes for tournaments put on by places like galactic gaming and other similar sits. Second, i'd like to know if they are going to bring some of these live tournaments to smaller places. For example, i live outside of the Quad Cities (community consisting of towns from Illinois and Iowa on the Mississippi River) and i want to know if there will be opportunities for me to earn RP in tournaments, if there are even any to participate in anymore.