Why are fighting tournaments always the front for an evil scheme, anyway?

It's not just Street Fighter 2, but a lot of competitors, particularly King of Fighters. You've heard the line from Terry Bogard before, I'm sure... "KOF was just a front for something bad?" Yes, Terry, yes! Just like the last fourteen times! Like the time they were going to resurrect an unstoppable eight-headed serpent from the Far East, in human form! Or the time a billionaire decided to turn the best fighters in the world into lawn ornaments! Or the time they planned to use hundreds of clones of the main character in an effort to control all the world's governments!

Anyway, this trope is explored to some degree in this sketch from The Pete Holmes Show on TBS. Turns out for M. Bison, it's not so much about world domination, but the fights leading to it. Sometimes the guys throw red fireballs when they're fighting, you know!

(And no, they can't all just fight in Atlanta.)