What are the most common mistakes made by esports commentators and how can you avoid them?

While I would not label it as a blatant mistake, I believe an excellent caster should allow a broad group of people to understand and follow the game. This includes people who might have not played the game or are less experienced. In that way, the accessibility of viewing esports increases (and therefore the potential amount of viewers).

Lack of in-depth knowledge or its latest patch and changes of the game as a caster is a definite huge mistake to appoint the caster as the caster for the sake of an efficient and suspenseful commentary, predicting what strategies each team may use from moment to moment.

eSports events would sometimes be organized by event management companies who may have great bias against the gaming industry. When these event companies are in charge, they often do not care about the game being host during the event, and emcees without the game's knowledge maybe invited to cast for the event or the game. Hence, it will be the biggest mistake anyone could make not appointing a professional caster who specializes in casting for that specific game.

Having a personality gamer-celebrity (or public figure) that plays and knows the game well, such as a livestreamer who is already an expert in engaging and making audience excited about the game or event is a huge added bonus in such event.

It is unfortunately a common occurrence for home-based casters to cheer more for their own team, where by default they should be focusing on getting the audience excited about the event. One way to resolve this common occurrence, each eSports event should have casters from neutral countries to avoid the biases. Casters all around the world from the same game could also come together to congregate as a team during off-game periods, to remind each other the same focus to entertain their audience

Know how to properly pronounce people's names. Practice them. Triple check them. You can even ask. Know their pronouns. Know how to pronounce country names, city names. This may seem like basic preparedness but you'd be surprised how often its missed. Go beyond just understanding these things but practice them so you can execute with confidence. Learn background information so you're ready with colour commentary. Avoid negative bias and generalizations. Treat everyone involved like a beloved celebrity - with respect and dignity. This shows professionalism and prevents alienation. Remember sportsmanship too. You want everyone to have a good game. To do their best. To have fun. To make the event great.

You're a professional so you've got to bring your A game to every game. You want to show a consistent level of enthusiasm and energy no matter what game, team, player, company, location, or sponsor is involved. Fans are watching because they're excited and interested. If they detect you're any less excited or any less interested, that won't go well. Even the smallest most obscure events are your professional warmup for that big star-studded event down the line in your career. If you can rock it when you're not super enthused on the inside, you're set. If you're struggling with generating that enthusiasm and interest, do research, find things to get pumped about. There is always something there. Olympic coverage does this for example.

Overstepping boundaries doesn't happen all the time but it definitely happens and even if it doesn't seem like a huge deal in the moment, it can later be revealed to be more of a problem than you realized. This is part of the research you want to do, so you can understand boundaries before hand and know how to not cross them. More than that, however, you want to not even go CLOSE to anybody's boundaries. Don't try to be edgy. Don't try to dance too close to the line. If you do, you'll stumble over it and be full of regrets. I've seen it happen. Edgy in this profession is bad. Even if you don't cross boundaries but get a little too close, that's going to be a problem for you in the future.

eSports tournament based event would truly require a caster who knows the game and its participating gamers inside-out to anticipate and cast the possible next move or strategy each team or its gamer may use, to get the crowd and its audience excited. Speaking accurately fast in caster's respective language would be a huge added bonus as the game is usually fast-paced. A great example would be DOTA 2.