It was no surprise when Bailey Prete landed her first job at NBC covering the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics just a year after graduating college.
What did come as a surprise, though, was winning her first Emmy for her team’s coverage of the event.
Headquartered in Stamford, Ct., Prete and her team spent three weeks on Paris time—starting work at midnight, ending the day at 4 p.m., taking the bus to work, and running on coffee. For Prete, though, it was a thrill.
“We did seven different events, so it was always chaos, but, I think, as a two-sport collegiate athlete, I thrive in the chaos,” Prete said. “It was just a sprint through those three weeks, and we were working all the time.”
Prete played tennis and field hockey for Bowdoin before transferring to Boston College her junior year, playing on the club field hockey team. She also interned at Fox News during college. In short, she was used to the hustle.
On her team, she worked in a fast-paced environment, having her hand in multiple parts of the broadcast, including logging clips, helping the producers, and working directly with the people on screen.
The work she put in garnered results, or in this case, an Emmy. Winning the Emmy was an amazing experience, according to Prete, and the achievement served as motivation to continue down the path of sports media.
“I think at this stage in my career, to have that sort of accomplishment just lights the fire under me more,” Prete said. “And I just want to keep going.”
Prete hopes that her path in sports media, and experiences like working the Olympics, will eventually lead her to a career in sideline reporting. She wants to be able to connect with athletes and audiences on a deeper level than what happens on the field.
“I think I always wanted to be a sideline reporter,” Prete said. “You never know the story behind the athlete, and I think it’s so cool to watch them excel so much and then learn about what makes them tick.”
Currently, Prete works as a broadcasting content associate for the NFL. Her experience has expanded her interests in sports journalism, she said, and she hopes to learn as much as possible from the position.
“Sideline reporters are extremely intelligent. They know their stuff. They know the game. And so I think it’s taught me [that] I need to learn the rules and learn the game,” Prete said. “Every Sunday I’m in the officiating center at the league office, and it’s like 12 hours of football, and I’m just learning the rules.”
But Prete is also interested in more than just being on-air.
“Now that I’ve seen the behind the scenes, I think I would definitely want to still be on air, but I would also want to be involved in the business side of things,” Prete said.
Although her interests have evolved, Prete always knew she would end up in sports media.
“As a kid, I was always a performer, and I’m super loquacious,” she said. “And then being a lifelong athlete … It just kind of was the perfect marriage.”
This love for sports media followed Prete throughout college. She invested her passion in a communications major, in internships she applied for, and in a sports podcast she ran in her free time.
Her podcast, The Daily Bailey, was the perfect way to get a foot in the door in an industry she loved, according to Prete. It also helped her learn where she wanted to take the sports media industry and what kind of journalist she wanted to become.
“I thought, what’s a good stepping stone into the world of content creation and media that can allow me to, one, have a vessel to interview people and learn about people’s stories, but also to get a lot of reps,” Prete said.
Talking to athletes granted Prete an entirely new perspective on the industry.
“I feel like when you really get to know people, they’re not just an athlete. It’s kind of like that, ‘helmets off’ approach they talk about at the NFL,” Prete said. “Like you’re learning about the whole person, and then you can see how their personality translates into their play.”
Prete’s friend Katy MacLennan, who she met at Boston College, said that Prete’s genuine curiosity and determination are present in all aspects of her life.
“She’s always wanting to learn more, even just as a friend, she’s always wanting to see my perspective,” MacLennan said. “People just want to get the story out there, but I think she brings such positivity to what she does, and she just really wants to learn more, and I think that’s super important when you’re in a career in media. She’s just such a driven person.”
Prete’s academic advisor and Communications professor at Boston College, Lindsay Hogan, said Prete was attentive in and out of the classroom. According to Hogan, her willingness to learn never felt performative.
“She’s always sincere and gives people her full attention when she’s interacting with them,” Hogan said. “It never feels like she’s just sort of doing it to get something out of you or doing it to look good.”
For Hogan, Prete’s passion for what she does was evident throughout her time in college. Because of this, Hogan saw her success in the sports journalism industry as exciting, but expected.
“I’m so incredibly proud of her. I’m not surprised by her success out there in the real world,” Hogan said. “But I honestly just feel really grateful that I had the opportunity to get to know her, to see her develop and grow, not just as an advisee and not just as a student, but as a person.”
For now, Prete is learning all that she can from her current position—but she has big plans for her future in sports media.
“The career I thought I [would] have was basically just ‘sideline reporter,’ and now I want a more all encompassing position,” she said. “Right now, I’m just trying to be a sponge and soak up as much as I can learn.”
