Sports Journalism student interviews Sky Sports’ Hayley McQueen on sports media career advice

A UCFB student got the chance to interview broadcasting icon Hayley McQueen during the Sky Sports presenter’s visit to UCFB Wembley.

Freya Wren, who studies BA (Hons) Multimedia Sports Journalism, asked Hayley about such topics as breaking into the industry and advice for women wanting a career in sports media.

See Hayley’s advice below:

How did you break into the industry?

I think a little bit by accident. I never set out to be a presenter. I just wanted to work in sport, definitely football, and wanted to work in TV.

I did a degree which led me to wanting to actually do fashion journalism. All my friends actually went and worked for really glamorous fashion magazines, but I knew more about football.

I was like, “I’m going to figure out TV,” and then fell into it a little bit, really.

How do you deal with the pressure of breaking news?

I love it. It’s great. Apart from it’s your own team and it’s awful news. I mean, being a Manchester United fan and having to report on their breaking news is pretty bad. But when your team is riding high, yeah, it’s great.

Sometimes it can be difficult, breaking big news, if it’s a sport that you might not necessarily know enough about. I didn’t used to know tons about darts.

Now we all love the darts, don’t we? It’s great fun, but I didn’t know anything and everything about darts. So there’d be some breaking news and I’d panic a little bit, having to Google as much as I could whilst still trying to present.

What’s the typical day like behind the scenes at Sky Sports?

I now present breakfast, so my day is very different to how it used to be. My alarm goes off at four and I leave my house at quarter past four. I get to work for five and I have a cup of tea. So that’s the day started.

Showering and everything happens the night before because who wants to be waking up half an hour early to wash their hair? So that’s the important bit. The next most important bit is getting hair and makeup done. That’s a lovely bit.

And then in between five o’clock and me going on air at seven, all of our prep, all my reading. I sit with the production team, so we’ll have the producer and the whole team sitting together. It’s very quiet in the office then, which is quite nice. You’ll have one of our graphics guys and someone from the news desk, and you’ll feel like quite a part of like a small cozy team, which is a kind of nice way to wake up.

And as I’m on air, obviously the office gets a little bit busier and news starts to happen. But it’s great. The other day, for example, I was on air, and we had huge breaking news about Celtic the night before. I didn’t realise that news until I’d literally got into work. I was scrambling around to get as much information as I could before going on to air.

But that’s when it’s great fun, when it’s stuff that happens overnight. And, you know, the nation is waking up to me delivering that news, I suppose, and following the story as the morning goes on.

And lastly, just what advice would you give to a young woman who wants to pursue a career in sports media?

My advice would be just go for it, apply for any and every job, whether you want to be a presenter, a reporter, a writer, whatever it is that you want to do, give them all a little bit of a go and just see how you go.

And target an organisation you want to work for as opposed to the job that you want to get because quite often the job that you want to get might not be available with less experience, but if you think, “Okay I very much fit Sky, I love Sky and love what they’re about,” get into the organisation and then you can feel your way around.

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