Reflecting on a weekend of Scrabble streaming
This past weekend, I had the privilege of working with a world-class team of streamers to help broadcast a world-class Scrabble tournament. The Australasian Open - a big, open tournament designed to bring together players from New Zealand, Australia, and all over the southwestern Pacific region - took place in Auckland over the weekend, and I got to (remotely) parachute in and commentate for a few rounds of it.
This was an impeccably well-run tournament across the board. From Howard Warner and the other New Zealand Scrabble leaders who helped organize it, to Chris Tallman who was on the ground directing, to Jake Finlayson who produced the stream, to Josh Sokol who was the workhorse of broadcast team and called most of the event, they had a dream team in place, and it was an honor to work with them.
The point of this post is certainly not to celebrate my performance on the stream - long story short, I stammered and stuttered my way through a generally mediocre few hours of commentary. But more importantly, I wanted to call attention to just how friggin' cool it was to get to commentate on a session of top-level Scrabble games - and more broadly, how cool it is that streaming Scrabble content is on the rise all around the world in the year of our lord 2026. These are exciting times to be a Scrabble fan.
As for the Australasian Open stream specifically, it was a blast. Josh and I got to witness a thrilling finish to the tournament - Howard, who's one of the strongest players in New Zealand, started off the event 10-0, but then a few other players including Dylan Early began to make a late surge on the final day, setting up a dramatic finish. We got to call the final game between Howard and Dylan, with both players tied at 11-3 and playing for the championship. In the end, Howard pulled it out, and we got to enjoy the moment alongside a global audience that was following along with us on YouTube. It was pretty dope.
Zooming out and looking at the Scrabble world at large, I think it's pretty exciting that we're seeing more and more tournaments broadcast live for a global audience. This is something that WESPA has been making a big push for lately - getting as many tournaments as possible to be streamed, and putting them on the WESPA YouTube channel so they can all live in one centralized place that's easy for audiences to find. It's a really cool thing - and an important thing for the future of Scrabble. As we try to build our game into a mind sport that has a true worldwide reach and mainstream appeal, it's going to be crucial that we have lots and lots of high-quality video content to showcase to the world. We're currently building that up, gradually, one stream at a time.
Of course, it's important to note that pulling that off, especially at this worldwide scale, is going to require a great deal of effort from us, collectively, the global Scrabble community. It's going to take a lot of people who are willing to put in that legwork - producing streams, commentating on them, promoting them, and so on and so forth.
Here's the good news, though: All that legwork is fun! I can tell you this from personal experience, just this past weekend. And I'd encourage anyone out there reading this to give it a try for themselves. Consider reaching out to someone you know in the community who's interested in Scrabble streaming and offering to pitch in. Not only is it a super fun way to spend an afternoon, but it's also a great way to make a meaningful contribution to the future of Scrabble. Win win.
The Australasian Open was a blast - enjoyable weekend all around. My hope is that, moving forward, we see countless more weekends in the future just like it. I'm looking forward to playing a role in another stream production sometime in the future, and I hope that some of y'all out there will consider doing the same.