This video casting is easy, so what’s next. From here on in, things start getting pretty cool, as if they weren’t already. Lets face it, if you have come this far, its unlikely you are going to turn back now, so what comes next will either terrify you or thrill you (or if you are like me, both!). Up to now, you will have been confined to the four walls of your bedroom or room at home, whether that be for Radio commentary or video casts, but its time to leave that comfort zone and step in to the world of event broadcasting.
The actual commentary won’t be that different to what you are used to from your home video casting; however there are a number of things that do differ. The first one is of course the cameras. Usually, they will now be trained on your face and I well remember my first time on camera as it was about as comfortable as having my nipples blow-torched.
When you attend tournaments in person, you will be expected to go “On Camera” at some point to deliver analysis or your views on the games ahead or just played out. You may even appear in something called PIP (Picture in picture), which although I personally don’t like, some broadcasters do put their commentators in PIP during the actual match. If, like I was initially, you aren’t comfortable on camera, remember that very few people are and that it’s likely anyone put in the same space would feel the same. The next thing to do is get help. Help comes in the form of advice from your peers and fellow broadcasters (who are likely to have felt just like you do when they first started). It also comes in the form of help from reading books on TV production (particularly sports production), biographies of professional sports commentators (I can particularly recommend Murray Walker’s biography) and watching plenty of varied sports and listening and watching how the commentators work. 
You can, fairly inexpensively, enrol in a local college course, either full time or, like I did part time in the evenings for a few weeks. A general media course is enough for most, but you can take it to degree level if you are academically minded. In fact, a number of commentators run media degree’s alongside working for a gaming broadcaster and the two help each other.
It might be that you take to it easily and none of the above will apply to you, in which case, great, you are probably a natural born show off and that’s pretty cool for the job you just chose!
