For almost 30 years we've always heard that Ash wanted to be the Pokémon Master Trainer and that to do so he needed to participate in leagues, etc. But has anyone ever stopped to think about how the leagues never seemed to have any urgency? I mean, Ash would enter a league and lose, the consequence? Nothing, he lost and was already going to the next league, and even if he won, what was the prize? A title and a trophy? In that sense, Pokémon seems much more like a sports anime than other series aimed at a children's audience to sell toys.
Let's take Yu-Gi-Oh, for example. Yugi went to Pegasus Island not for money or to win the title of King of Games, but to save his grandfather's soul, which creates a sense of urgency and weight to the story. If Yugi lost, he would lose his grandfather and the Millennium Puzzle, and Ash never went through that kind of thing.
And this brings me to another issue I've seen discussed: why, with the end of the Tournament of Power in Dragon Ball Super, were people watching it in public squares on giant screens, but not with the Masters Eight Tournament? Because of the consequences. In one, the prize for winning was survival, and losing meant being erased from existence; in the other, the prize was a title, and defeat simply meant "good luck next year." There wasn't anything like the loser having their Pokémon erased or their region destroyed.