Mike Bushell
Conferences, awards nights and internal events live or die on the person at the front of the room. A serious agenda needs a host who can carry a programme, handle live mistakes, draw an audience in, and make senior leaders look good on stage. Most of that craft is invisible until it goes wrong.
Mike Bushell is the BBC Breakfast sports presenter and Strictly Come Dancing 2019 finalist who hosts corporate events, awards and conferences, and gives talks on active lifestyles drawn from trying more than 550 sports on national television.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Mike Bushell
- Twenty years of live national television experience on BBC Breakfast, which translates directly into the composure conferences and awards need from the person holding the room.
- A recognisable face from one of the UK’s largest morning audiences and a 2019 Strictly Come Dancing series, which adds warmth and recognition to internal events and client-facing nights.
- A genuine interactive format, Sport or Spoof, that he runs with corporate audiences using sports drawn from his on-air library, giving organisations a built-in entertainment slot rather than a generic keynote.
- An on-record body of work on activity, participation and trying-the-untried that lends a credible voice to wellbeing, engagement and active-lifestyle programmes inside organisations.
- Reporting experience from Olympics, Paralympics and multiple World Cups, which gives him native fluency on stage with athletes, sports federations and sponsorship audiences.
Biography highlights
- Longest-serving sports presenter in BBC Breakfast history, joined the programme in 2006.
- Has personally tried and profiled more than 550 sports on BBC One, from Quidditch and shin-kicking to Kabaddi with the Indian national team at the Asian Games in Doha.
- Held a Guinness World Record for travelling across water in an inflatable ball, set for Sport Relief in 2012.
- Contestant on Strictly Come Dancing series 17 in 2019, partnered with Katya Jones.
- Has reported on the Olympics, Paralympics, Commonwealth Games and football, rugby and cricket World Cups.
- Author of Bushell’s Best Bits (2013), drawn from his sports-discovery slot.
- Career began at BBC Radio Solent in 1990, with earlier reporting roles at the Derby Evening Telegraph and the Windsor and Slough Observer.
Biography
Live sports presentation on BBC Breakfast is one of the more exposed jobs in UK broadcasting. The presenter takes the chair every Saturday morning, on national television, with no second take. Mike Bushell has held that chair longer than anyone in the programme’s history, joining BBC Breakfast in 2006 after starting his career at BBC Radio Solent in 1990.
The on-air work is built around a simple proposition: every week, try a sport. The list now runs past 550 and includes shin-kicking, worm charming, Quidditch, swamp soccer, Rush hockey and Kabaddi with the Indian team at the Asian Games in Doha. The book that came out of it, Bushell’s Best Bits, was published in 2013. The format is the source of the interactive Sport or Spoof game he runs with corporate audiences.
The wider reporting CV covers Olympics, Paralympics, Commonwealth Games and football, rugby and cricket World Cups. In 2019 he was a contestant on series 17 of Strictly Come Dancing with Katya Jones, which is the credit most internal-event audiences recognise on sight.
For organisations, the offer is straightforward. Bushell hosts conferences, moderates panels, runs awards nights and gives after-dinner talks. When the brief calls for it, he also speaks on activity, participation and getting people off the sofa, drawn directly from the on-air body of work.
Key speaking topics
- Event hosting and conference moderation
- Awards night presenting
- Active lifestyles and sports participation
- Workplace wellbeing through movement
- Resilience and trying the unfamiliar
- Sports broadcasting and the Olympic and World Cup beat
- Interactive audience formats including Sport or Spoof
Ideal for
- Internal conferences, sales kick-offs and all-hands looking for a recognisable host
- Awards nights and sponsor evenings in sport, media and consumer sectors
- Wellbeing, HR and people-team programmes built around activity and participation
- Charity galas, fundraising dinners and sports federation events
Audience outcomes
- A programme run cleanly from the front of the room, with live moments handled without losing the audience
- A shared moment of entertainment through the Sport or Spoof format, tuned to the audience in the room
- A direct, lived case for getting more active and the corporate-wellbeing argument that follows
- Behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Strictly, the Olympics, World Cups and 550 sports on national television