The problem is in seeing it as a single competition. Have small sub-competitions with a higher luck component, so that people can experience winning a game, or even a round on the way to getting good enough to win a whole season. Make those wins satisfying and people will happily take a beating overall.
The idea of several different goals is how the US football system works. Most games in the season 'count' by improving your seeding in the playoffs but it's also binary so you get in or don't. Adapting a similar system for video games could work vary well.
I would suggest banding things so 20 teams compete for a spot in the playoffs which consists of 16 teams. (aka 16 people get a win at the cost of 4.) And in the actual playoffs you only lose one game, so rank people based on what round they get to. Something like winner!, (A++) lost final game, (A+) final 4, (A) final 8, (B) got into playoffs, (Try again)did not get into playoffs.
The secret is letting people move on as soon as they can't win any more while making them feel like getting as far as they did is still worth something. Lost the first 6 games? Hey start over it's ok, I hope you learned how the game worked etc.
