BA (Hons)

Sports Business and Management

Apply business, marketing and finance in real sport settings, supported by industry mentors and expert lecturers. Question how sport is governed, funded and grown. Graduate adaptable, resilient and ready to drive performance, purpose and progress across professional clubs, governing bodies and sport organisations.

How to apply Apply through UCAS Book an Open Day Chat to Us

Key Course Details

  • UCAS Code

    N881

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Pontypridd

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Home students

    £9,535*

  • International students

    £17,200*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Online

  • Campus Code

    A

Fees

  • Home students

    £804*

  • Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits.
Make an Enquiry

Sport never stands still and neither will you. This course develops sharp business thinking, commercial awareness and leadership confidence through practical experience, industry insight and applied learning.

DESIGNED FOR

Designed for individuals who want to learn by doing, combining academic study with hands‑on experience inside professional sports clubs. Ideal for motivated learners who want to build real industry skills, work directly with EFL club organisations, and start shaping their future in sport from day one.

Career Paths

  • Project Manager  
  • Media and Marketing Manager  
  • Finance Manager  
  • Business Development Manager  
  • Operations Manager  

Skills taught

  • Communication  
  • Problem Solving  
  • Leadership  
  • Teamworking  
  • Analytical Skills  

Accreditations

  • In partnership with the EFL  

We make a difference in practice, not just on paper. Our courses are designed by people who offer jobs - and taught by people who have real work experience.

Two individuals talking and smiling overlooking an indoor football pitch.
Two sport students sat together at a table focusing on a laptop
A group of three sport researchers, including PhD students and doctoral supervisors, sit around a table chatting with notepads and a laptop
Two students smiling at each other in a classroom

Course Highlights

Active mentoring

You’ll be paired with an experienced club staff member who will guide you, helping you navigate learning resources and set up real-world placements while keeping you active and moving forward.

Hands-on placement opportunities

Put your skills into action with extensive placement opportunities across sports coaching and development. You’ll gain practical, on-the-ground experience that gets you moving and learning in real environments.

Module Overview

In your first year, you’ll explore how sport works on and off the field, build skills through hands-on projects and workplace experience, and gain the confidence to lead and make an impact.

Digital Communication and Fan Engagement  
This module explores how digital communication builds relationships between sport organisations and their audiences. You’ll design and evaluate purposeful, ethical digital campaigns that strengthen engagement, identity, and community in sport.  

People, Performance and Practice  
Explore how leadership, teamwork, and performance shape success in sport organisations. You’ll examine how communication, motivation, and ethical practice influence culture, and build the skills to lead confidently in diverse environments.  

Reflection on Learning in the Workplace (Online)  
Gain real-world experience in a sport organisation while developing professional skills and career direction. You’ll reflect on your strengths, set goals, and build the confidence to contribute effectively in the workplace.  

The Business of Sport  
Understand how the global sport industry works as a business. You’ll explore governance, revenue, stakeholders, and strategy, building commercial awareness and critical thinking for careers in sport management, marketing, and development.  

In Year 2, build advanced skills to lead, manage, and innovate in sport. Explore people management, leadership, branding, and finance through projects and case studies, making ethical, real-world impact.

Human Resource Management in Sport  
Explore how people are managed in sport organisations, from leadership and team dynamics to recruitment and talent development. Build practical skills, tackle real-world challenges, and lead ethically and inclusively in sport.  

Leadership and Organisational Practice (Online)
Apply and expand your leadership skills in real sport settings. Explore team dynamics, governance, and ethical decision-making while developing research skills, reflecting on your practice, and shaping your professional identity.  

Sports Branding
Explore how sport brands shape identity and reputation. Analyse, refresh, and communicate brands creatively and ethically, using theory and digital tools, while building professional judgment and confidence in strategic brand storytelling.  

Sports Finance and Analytics
Develop financial and analytical skills for the sport industry, analyse budgets, revenue, and performance data, use digital tools to generate insights, and make ethical, strategic decisions that support sustainable sport organisations.  

During your final year, you’ll push your skills to the next level and see how sport comes to life in real-world settings. You’ll lead high-performing teams, shape strategy, influence stakeholders, and use storytelling to make an ethical impact.

Leadership and High Performance in Sport (Online)  
Discover how effective leadership shapes success in sport, inspiring teams and driving performance. Learn to build trust, lead diverse groups, manage stakeholders, and create high-performance environments while reflecting on your own impact.  

Policy, Law and Governance in Sport (Online)  
Discover how policy, law, and governance shape the modern sport landscape, influencing participation, management, and organisational decision-making. Analyse real-world cases and develop the skills to lead ethically and make informed, strategic decisions.  

Storytelling and Stakeholder Influence
Examine how strategic storytelling shapes leadership and organisational impact in sport, influencing stakeholders, building trust, and driving action. Learn to design ethical, inclusive, and purpose-driven narratives using digital and AI tools.  

Strategic Sport Development (Online)
Explore how politics, strategy, and policy shape sport in the UK and globally. Analyse sports policies, evaluate strategies, and learn to contribute to planning, change management, and performance in real-world contexts.  

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

You’ll learn in the workplace of a professional sports club and charity, applying ideas straight away instead of waiting until the end of term. Most study happens on the job and online, with short university residentials to bring everything together. You’ll tackle real challenges, reflect on your practice, and build the skills and confidence employers value.

How you'll be assessed

Assessment on this course is progressive and practice-focused. At Level 4, you’ll build confidence through structured portfolios, practical tasks and guided case studies with regular feedback. At Levels 5 and 6, you’ll move into more complex, real-world projects, including performance appraisals, presentations and collaborative work.  

All assessments are based on live challenges co-created with the English Football League in the Community and partner clubs. You’ll receive ongoing feedback from tutors, peers and Club Mentors, with opportunities to present ideas, submit drafts and reflect on your development before final submission.  

Placements

In year two you will complete up to 200 hours of (work-based learning) that is managed through weekly tutorials and a comprehensive mentoring programme. The work-based learning programme will be completed within the Community club organisations or clubs and will provide opportunities to gain experience in areas such as project management, sports finance, media and marketing, HR and business development.

Facilities

Online blended learning is delivered through the University’s VLE, giving you access to interactive content, learning activities and clear communication with staff and peers.  

During Residential Visits, you’ll use both USW’s campus facilities and spend time out at EFL clubs across the network to deepen your learning and connect with your cohort. In the workplace, you’ll be supported by a dedicated Club Mentor, with additional guidance from the course team and partners at English Football League in the Community. Digital tools are embedded throughout to support coaching, collaboration and reflective practice. 

Accreditations and Partnerships

In partnership with

Careers and Employability

Graduate Careers

The BA (Hons) Sports Business and Management gets you ready to move in the sports world. Through learning on the job, you’ll gain real experience, impress clubs and their partners, and build the skills to step into roles across clubs, agencies, marketing, operations, or even launch your own sports venture.

Careers Support

You’ll be supported to take the next step in your career from day one. Through expert guidance, workplace mentoring, tailored employability workshops and direct experience in professional club environments, you’ll build confidence, develop your CV and graduate with the practical skills and industry insight employers in sport look for.

Possible career paths

Graduates from this degree could gain employment at professional football clubs, national governing bodies, sports marketing agencies, and in the hospitality industry, business management, logistics, digital marketing, advertising, Sports Business Development, Sport and Leisure Management and Administration, club directorship, sports facilities management, sports agency, sponsorship and commercial management, sport operations management and sports entrepreneurship.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

UCAS points: 104 (or above)

Typical qualification requirements:

  • A Level: BCC to include a Science subject or PE and to exclude General Studies 
  • BTEC: Distinction Merit Merit
  • Welsh Baccalaureate Advanced Skills Challenge Certificate: C/B in the Skills Challenge Certificate and BC - CC at A Level
  • Access to HE: Pass the Access to HE Diploma and obtain a minimum of 104 UCAS tariff points.
  • T Level: Pass (C and above)

Additional requirements include:

This course is delivered predominantly online and not available to International Students wishing to reside in the UK on a student VISA as formal affiliation with a UK EFL Trust sports club is required.

The University normally requires a minimum 5 GCSEs including Mathematics/Numeracy and English at Grade C or Grade 4 or above, or their equivalent, but consideration is given to individual circumstances.

Closed for International applicants 

Unfortunately, this course is not currently open to international applicants, please visit our course pages where you can find an alternative course choice. 

 

Contextual offers

We may make you a lower offer based on a range of factors, including your background (where you live and the school or college that you attended, for example), your experiences and individual circumstances (as a care leaver, for example). This is referred to as a contextual offer, and we receive data from UCAS to support us in making these decisions.

USW prides itself on its student experience and we support our students to achieve their goals and become a successful graduate. This approach helps us to support students who have the potential to succeed and who may have faced barriers that make it more difficult to access university.

 

We're here to help

Whether you a have a question about your course, fees and funding, the application process or anything else, there are plenty of ways you can get in touch, and we'd love to talk to you. You can contact our friendly admissions team by phone, email or chat to us online.

 

Fees and Funding

UK Full-time Fee

£9,535

per year*
International Full-time Fee

£17,200

per year*
UK Part-time Fee

£804

per 20 credits*

Further Information

Studying at university is one of the most significant investments you'll ever make. Whilst you’re studying, you’ll have two main financial obligations – tuition fees and living costs. There’s lots of financial help available from the University of South Wales and external funding sources, that may provide loans (which have to be paid back) and grants, scholarships and bursaries (that don't).

*Full-time fees are per year. Part-time fees are per 20 credits. Once enrolled, the fee is anticipated to remain at the same rate throughout the duration of your study on this course except as described below.

Please be aware that we may increase the maximum fee for home students on full-time undergraduate courses only where the Welsh Government increases the permitted level of inflation of fees. Fees for all students (including part-time, postgraduate and international students) may be amended in accordance with our applicable Fees and Debt Management Policy.  We will ensure that students are given clear, intelligible, unambiguous and timely information about our courses and costs in good time, ahead of the next academic year.

 

Fees and Funding Scholarships and Bursaries Cost of Living Support

Additional Costs

As a student of USW, you’ll have access to lots of free resources to support your study and learning, such as textbooks, publications, online journals, laptops, and plenty of remote-access resources. Whilst in most cases these resources are more than sufficient in supporting you with completing your course, additional costs, both obligatory and optional, may be required or requested for the likes of travel, memberships, experience days, stationery, printing, or equipment.

*Obligatory

Students will be required to cover the cost of their travel to USW and other sites for Residential Visits, which happen twice per year.

Prefer learning in person?

Our BA (Hons) Business and Management degree is available on campus at our Treforest site in Pontypridd. You’ll gain all the skills needed to thrive in a wide range of business roles and benefit from our on-site facilities.

Find out more about BA (Hons) Business and Management

University Quality Assurance

At USW, we regularly review our courses in response to changing patterns of employment and skills demand to ensure we offer learning designed to reflect today’s student needs and tomorrow’s employer demands.

If during a review process course content is significantly changed, we’ll write to inform you and talk you through the changes for the coming year. But whatever the outcome, we aim to equip our students with the skillset and the mindset to succeed whatever tomorrow may bring. Your future, future-proofed.

Life at USW

Halls are a big part of your student experience and there’s accommodation at all three of our locations. If you don’t want to live near the campus, there are great transport links to keep you connected.

A student sat smiling and talking to friends off camera in Treforest Student's Union
Student Life
Close up shot of the front of the Alfred Russell wallace building.
Pontypridd Campus, Glyntaff
A double room at our Pontypridd accommodation featuring a large window.
Accommodation

How to apply

All applications for full-time undergraduate courses or foundation degrees should be made via UCAS. Take the next step: Apply through UCAS. You can apply to us directly for all part-time undergraduate courses, if you’re seeking advanced entry or you’re an international student. To apply directly, please choose the application form below for your preferred start date and mode of study (full-time or part-time).

Advanced entry

If you already have a relevant qualification or experience related to the course you're applying for, you may be eligible to start at a later stage of the course. For example, students from partner colleges can ‘top up’ their qualifications to a degree by joining us in Year Two or Year Three of a course. This process is known as ‘advanced entry’, you can apply directly to the University for 'advanced entry' using the application forms provided above.

Applicants accepted through advanced entry may study a different combination of modules to those advertised, as they will be joining a course already in progress. You will be contacted and advised about these modules once your application has been processed and an offer made.

International admissions

International applicants can apply to us directly. If the University has an in-country team in your region, your application will be assigned to them for assistance.
 

Related Courses

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Sports Journalism - BA (Hons) Learn more
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Next Steps

How to apply
Apply Through UCAS
Book an Open Day
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