“Every minute is interesting in this sport”: Super League presenter Will McCloy

Will McCloy is a sports commentator, host and reporter, who’s best known for his quick turn of phrase when announcing Super League Triathlon races.

But behind the Aussie grin and humour there’s a dedication to his profession that belies the dad-of-two being a relative newcomer to tri. Over to the man behind the microphone…

Starting out in tri

I’d never watched or competed in a triathlon before 2017 and only vaguely knew what sports were in it. I was reporting on rugby league, AFL and cricket here in Australia when Gravity Media won the rights to produce the first Super League Triathlon at Hamilton Island and I was put forward as a potential host.

They liked my showreel and I told them I could commentate – even though I’d never called anything before! But I studied everything to the nth degree and it just steamrolled from there.

I haven’t missed a Super League event since, and now I’d be more likely to watch a triathlon than a rugby league grand final. It’s an amazing sport filled with incredible humans with surprisingly little ego.

The dream job

I think being part of Super League at its inception meant I’ve loved it more than any other job I’d ever done. It was like a start-up. Everyone was pitching in to come up with new ideas on the fly to try and make it better.

Underlying everything was not ‘how do we make money and sell it?’ but the idea of doing something to make it better for the athletes and viewers.

It was just me and Macca in some studio near Sydney eating lollies as if they are going out of fashion because it’s 3.30am

The Arena Games were born out of Covid to create some content. I was stuck at the other end of the earth, sitting in the kitchen in pyjamas and a Super League shirt at 2am trying to commentate by whispering into the microphone so as not to wake the kids.

I had extension cords running everywhere. During one race, I noticed my computer had 10% battery, so I was trying to commentate while carrying my laptop around the house hunting for a charging cable. We adapted.

Even when Super League started back up, I was still locked down in Australia so would open up with: ‘Hello and welcome to wherever’.

Priceless colleagues

But it was just me and [two-time Ironman world champion and co Super League commentator] Macca [Chris McCormack] in some studio near Sydney eating lollies as if they are going out of fashion because it’s 3.30am.

Macca has one incredibly specific skill and that is to enthuse people about anything. If people tell him he can’t do something then he’ll just find a way to make it happen.

Being around people who are that driven to work outside of the normal boundaries is priceless. I’d take one guy like Macca over 100 who’d play it safe.

Lose the narrative, lose the viewers

My commentary style is helped by the dynamic pictures Super League provides. If I was sitting at home I’d be jabbering on about it in exactly the same way.

It’s about shortening the distance between the viewer and the emotion of the athlete. We alway make sure the shots are close, so we see the faces.

We educate viewers about the jeopardy of the moment, and make rules that make every minute interesting. There is no time within a race where I have to decide what I’m going to talk about.

I make a lot of effort to make sure I know a lot about the athletes. Not just the history of their careers, but what is happening with them this week. I then feel like I know them so I can help make superstars out of them.

It’s always about stories, and if you lose a narrative, you lose the viewers.

Hayden Wilde’s distant uncle

I always root for the triathletes who have come up with the series and have a real loyalty to it. Emma Jeffcoat is a good example and I feel like a distant uncle to Hayden Wilde.

I’ve seen Hayden go from this new kid who had no idea at the beginning and just grow and grow. I become friends with them through their highs and lows, find out what makes them tick, and just want them to go out and really smash it.

When I see them race in World Triathlon or the Commonwealth Games, I feel as if I’ve raised this child that goes off and does other things.

I’m 88kg and when I work in rugby league and even netball I’m a small guy. I come into triathlon and it’s like Gulliver’s Travels

Sub7-Sub8 Project

I was involved in the production of the Phoenix Foundation Sub7-Sub8 Project from the initial idea nearly two years before the event.

We laboured over everything that filled those 9hrs to make what could have been a quite boring telecast of an iron-distance event something people would want to watch.

We wanted to blow the rusted-on fans out of the water and the casual viewer to turn it on for 5mins and be stuck there for 3hrs. That’s why we did so much with stats and trackers, and all the content we rolled in.

We really dug in on what would make it exciting to someone who was just flicking it on.

The team element of Sub7-Sub8 was superb. My takeaway was how much buy-in there was from single-discipline superstars to make it work for their team captain. The whole vibe that week was incredible.

Huge credit to Gravity Media for leading on what I hope was one of the benchmark events for what we can base a telecast of that length on in the future. I think it was one of my proudest moments in the industry.

Same hurt at the end

I’m 88kg and when I work in rugby league and even netball I’m a small guy. I come into triathlon and it’s like Gulliver’s Travels.

What I like the most about triathlon is that no matter how fast you are, you’ll hurt the same at the end.

I’ve also got Dunning-Kruger syndrome and think given enough time I can compete with the pros! First, I’m trying to make the Aussie age-group team for Hamburg this summer.

Unlike most Aussies, I wasn’t a swimmer kid. I group up in the outback, about five hours inland where we had a dam full of leeches and dead sheep – so I didn’t get in there too much.

Like everyone, I train my strengths instead, so I do a lot of bike riding. I also recently went for a run with Tim Don and we did 10k in about 43mins while Tim was chatting. I couldn’t talk.

Secret training

About two years ago my eldest, Bella, said she wanted to BE a TRIATHLON. She’s signed up for her first tri in a couple of months. She’s only seven but very much into the individual elements.

Both her and Matty, 3, are now budding little triathletes. Swimming, biking and running are the foundations for things kids do all day, so it’s secret training anyway.

Top image: L-R: Will McCloy with Super League Triathlon co-founder Chris McCormack and pro triathletes Vincent Luis and Katie Zaferes at the 2019 SLT Malta. (Credit: Tom Shaw/Superleague Triathlon)