As Brandon “Texhorn” Bingham and Carter “Stellaric” Hawks exit UTD, the respective creator and broadcast leads of the esports program, they leave the program with big shoes to fill.
Bingham and Hawks both graduated in fall 2022. Bingham, who was the Creator Lead for the Content Creator program, joined the esports program in fall 2021 and quickly rose through the ranks before joining as a social media coordinator in spring 2022. Hawks, who was the lead for the Broadcast and Production Team within the program, managed the broadcast of almost every game that the UTD Esports Team hosted on their Twitch platform. With Bingham and Hawks gone, new management will step in to fill their roles and bring new light to the program.
Before Bingham was the content creator lead, he was one of the social media coordinators (SMC) for UTD Esports Twitter. During the time that Bingham acted as a SMC, the UTD Esports account was rated the number one collegiate social media account based on user interaction, by the Twitter collegiate data collection account @Esports_Data. While Bingham’s time as the creator lead for the Content Creation Team was short, he organized a charity event working with Movember, a program that brings attention to men’s mental health. During the runtime of this charity event, Bingham and the Content Creation Team raised over $500. Bingham said the role of Creator Lead has yet to be filled in the Esports Creation Team, but the group will be looking to make positive changes and in due time fill the position Bingham left behind.
“Thank you for the opportunity of a lifetime,” Bingham said. “Being able to explore Esports in a more professional environment has not only allowed me to develop relationships that will last long past college but has also allowed me look into a possible future career in a field that I didn’t even know existed before joining.”
Hawks maintained schedules and streamed games cast by the team of in-house color commentators and play-by-play analysts. The esports program has decided to split Hawks’ job into sections categorized by each game.
The broadcast and production lead for League of Legends and Super Smash Brothers Ultimate will be Hrithik “Combo” Ochani. Avery “Crow” Carter, Grayson “Kludgy” Brewster and Jason “jasonaa” Antwi-Appah will all be production leads for Overwatch, Rocket League and Valorant respectively.
With Hawks departing and a department restructure, Carter, who has been working in broadcast for UTD Esports since 2020, is being promoted to the head of the Overwatch Broadcasting Department.
“I’m not really looking to do anything too major,” Carter said. “Just looking to continue to buff out my casting resume, help my co-casters do the same and use the new room to its full potential.”
Brewster will also be acting as the broadcast and production manager, overseeing all of the aforementioned sections.
“I’m excited for the future of [production,] especially if we can get better computers to allow us to do cooler things,” Brewster said.