It would be pretty retarded to make him lose. The Kalos loss was a PR nightmare. Now imagine that x10 due to the growth of social media and the stakes being much higher.
The anime has been consistently losing rating loss after loss, with this season being the one exception (because there was no loss in Alola).
Will they really throw it all away for the sake of keeping the writing realistic? (Realistically, Ash shouldn't win, but then again he shouldn't win against Cynthia or Steven either)
