Shortly after accepting her award at Austin for her original script Excess Baggage, she made a deal with Columbia Pictures and signed with a major agency. You do not even have to win to benefit from a competition. LA producers volunteering their services in the hope of finding material. Writing contests are popping up everywhere, fueled by growing numbers of writers needing to be read and by producers who are desperate for good material, but don't want to deal with all those desperate writers. The contests are efficient filters.
Some contests offer more than recognition and money.
Sundance flies winners to Utah for intensive development sessions with established writers and directors. Disney winners move to LA for a year, where their living expenses are paid while they work closely with Disney executives. Mary Elders, who won Disney with her script Dead To The World, enjoyed her year in LA, made new friends and set up her project, then moved home to Seattle when it was over. But I knew, just driving into the gates of the city on my first day, that LA would never be so foreign again. It never hurts to win something.