I spent four years competing on the regional circuit before I moved to writing about it, which mostly means I know exactly how good the people I cover are and where I stood by comparison. The gap is significant. I grew up in a pretty competitive household, two older brothers, always something to prove, and competitive gaming was just where that energy went when I was a teenager. I studied sports media, which was less about sport and more about learning how competition functions as a story worth telling. What gets covered in esports and what actually matters are still two different things most of the time. Team dynamics that don’t show up in a bracket. Players grinding regional circuits without an audience. The tournament structures that reward consistency over a single run. That’s where I spend most of my time as a writer. I drove six hours for a regional event with three hundred viewers once. The match went five games. I filed the piece from a petrol station car park at midnight and I’d make the same drive again without thinking about it.
