No, this deal with Champs is not a scam. Other sites (the new Poker4Ever notably) are pulling out of the US too. Its my belief that they are unsensibly scared of this new anti-gambling bill coming to the senate. Its going to be amazing at how much $ these sites lose because of this.

Being a visionary, I see a future coalition amongst the big sites, with Stars, Para, and Party all banding together to fight this thing off. Between those three, theres a lot of $ and manpower to do a lot of persuading.