Career stories

Pacers Gaming

Growing from content creator to team leader.

At the Indiana Pacers’ NBA 2K League franchise, I brought design, production, and teaching into one role. Over six years, I grew from Director of Content to Senior Director, expanding my responsibility from the work on screen to team operations.

My role
Director of Content → Senior Director
When
Content: Apr 2018–Sep 2023
Senior Director: Sep 2023–Sep 2024
What I developed
Audience strategy · Production · Leadership
Pacers Gaming player portrait in an MVP and Rookie of the Year announcement graphic
Player recognition artwork from my Pacers Gaming portfolio. The people on the team were central to the brand.

A broader role

Give a new team a recognizable presence.

I joined Pacers Gaming as Director of Content in April 2018, during the NBA 2K League’s inaugural season. The role brought together video, livestreams, social graphics, player stories, and print.

My design foundation helped me carry a consistent identity across very different outputs. A roster announcement needs immediate recognition. A livestream needs an ongoing reason to watch. A media guide needs information someone can find and use.

I learned to connect individual pieces to a larger content strategy, while staying hands-on with production.

Two player profiles in the 2022 Pacers Gaming media guide, with portraits, biographies, and statistics
The 2022 media guide credits me for design and shared photography. Player profiles combine brand expression with reference information.

Audience strategy

Make something useful enough to be found.

I applied the search-driven teaching approach I was developing at Pixel & Bracket to the Pacers channel. NBA 2K tutorials and explainers could answer questions from players who had not yet become fans of the team.

Alongside those evergreen videos, the channel included player features, gameplay, and livestreams such as Rec with Viewers. That mix let us serve a practical need and give people a reason to spend time with the team.

My 2023 portfolio recorded more than 15 million channel views and 66,000 subscribers, describing it as the largest NBA 2K League team YouTube channel. Our streaming work also received the 2019 NBA Best Use of Streaming Award.

The lesson I carried forward: audience growth starts with understanding what someone came for. The content has to earn its place in their day.

NBA 2K22 Rec with Viewers livestream thumbnail featuring a Pacers Gaming player
A recurring invitation to participate, alongside searchable instructional content.

Channel figures above are historical results reported in my 2023 portfolio.

Commercial thinking

Connect a sponsor’s goal to a viewer’s problem.

For Elgato, I owned the sponsor concept and integration and self-produced a three-video tutorial series. Keyword research helped identify questions about capture cards and Stream Decks that the partnership could answer.

The work called for more than putting a product on camera. In the HD60 S lesson, I moved between a presenter view, overhead cable connections, and software demonstrations to explain different parts of the setup.

The partnership case in my earlier portfolio reported more than 800,000 views, over 700 products sold through tracked links, and a 10× return on the partnership investment.

This honed my ability to connect creative decisions to a business objective. Useful instruction gave the viewer a reason to watch and the partner a meaningful role in the content.

Spencer presenting an Elgato capture card beside the three-part tutorial series brief
The Elgato series joined topic research, on-camera teaching, production, and sponsor integration.

Watch the HD60 S tutorial ↗

Leadership

Take responsibility for more than the output.

In September 2023, I became Senior Director of Pacers Gaming, leading team operations and digital content strategy. My scope had expanded from content leadership to the wider operation of the franchise.

That shift changed what I paid attention to. Doing strong creative work still mattered, but so did setting direction, communicating priorities, and considering how a decision affected other people’s work.

I left in September 2024 to run Pixel & Bracket full time. I brought with me the experience of working inside a larger organization, representing a team through its content, and taking responsibility as the scope of the role grew.

What I bring

What I bring to a team.

Audience understanding
I translate the questions people ask into useful content and experiences, then connect that work to a broader strategy.
Commercial judgment
I can bring a partner’s objectives and the audience’s needs into the same creative brief.
Ownership and leadership
I’ve combined hands-on production with content leadership and team operations, adapting as the responsibility grew.

Let’s talk about working together ↗

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