I worked for Major League Gaming for seven years, from 2007 to 2014. In that time I went from being the company’s only video editor to running their Post Production Department to being the Executive Producer and Director of many of their largest & most important tournament broadcasts.

Few games were as important to the development of North American esports as Starcraft 2. Other games would come to eclipse its viewership, but esports in North America first truly came into its own with this game. And the same is true for my own development as a producer and director. Producing these broadcasts would test my reflexes and wits, but more than anything they introduced me to many of the people I continue to work with to this day. Marcus “djWHEAT” Graham and I first worked together on these broadcasts, and he would one day hire me to join him at Twitch. Working with him, as well as Sean “Day9” Plott, Geoff “InControl” Robinson and many more would be formative for me.

When I moved into directing MLG’s biggest live tournament broadcasts, I took on more than just calling shots during the show. I worked directly with the graphics designer, the stage manager, the editors, the on-site production team and especially the tournament organizers to carefully design and choreograph every element of the production.

In the earliest days, esports companies were always working on shoe-string budgets and making do with what was readily on hand. For MLG, that meant shooting live tournaments out of our office when necessary and sitting commentators down at our own desks with nothing but the city skyline for set decoration. We taped ND film to the window in order to keep the sunlight from blowing out our shot, and then removed it when the tournaments lasted long into the night.

When I finally made the transition from post production to directing live broadcasts, one of the challenges I was given was to produce as much content as possible from our tiny in-office studio. I was able, in time, to produce as much as 6 hours of live show a day for the company, including live League of Legends tournaments, and pre-produced shows like Rules of Engagement. RoE was hosted by pro Starcraft player Axslav and consisted of hour-long lessons in the fundamentals of playing that game. Working on this finally helped me get out of bronze league in the Starcraft ladder.

In 2009, a gaming video that got almost a million views was an incredibly rare accomplishment. The esports explosion was just beginning at this moment, and our Top 10 Plays videos were some of the strongest evidence available that there was more to this than just a fad. Their popularity was such that ESPN would not only lend us their Sportscenter Top 10 graphics, but even co-brand them for our use. It was a remarkable time, and being the editor for this and almost all the rest of MLG’s content was pretty incredible.