From what I gathered from the AFR interviews, the sponsors pulled out because he tried to go too big with the venue & accommodations (Lush's wife said they had vegan catering) but the ticket sales weren't what they thought it would be. They contracted QOTR to use their battlers and their name, but they didn't enlist Lush or Debo for assistance with promotion. Debo was pressing him to give the battlers their 2nd half before they battled. He didn't want to do that, so he chose to walk away with a 50k loss instead of a 75k loss. Tickets were only 30/40 dollars, so he wasn't going to get much back off the door.
Also, Debo is another person who has gone on record to say you can't make a lot of money throwing battle events in the West Coast.