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BA (Hons)

Sports Journalism

At USW's state-of-the-art Cardiff Campus, this vocational sports journalism degree offers opportunities to develop and refine your skills and understand sports media communications. Gain real-world experience through work placements at organisations like BBC Wales, ITV Wales, and Sky Sports News.

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Key Course Details

  • UCAS Code

    6B27

  • Start Date

    September

  • Location

    Cardiff

  • Campus Code

    B

Fees

  • Home students

    £9,535*

  • International students

    £15,850*

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

If you love sport and want to learn how to tell a great story, our sports journalism course is for you.

Designed for

Looking for a life in sports media and to build your portfolio and profile? We’ve got you. We’ll prepare you for a wide variety of job roles in the industry, including online and broadcast sports journalism, videography, social media management, and internal communications for sports organisations.

Career paths

  • Sports Correspondent / Reporter
  • Communications Officer
  • Media / Press Officer
  • Social Media Officer
  • Videographer / Podcaster

Skills taught

  • Media law and ethics
  • Critical thinking and research skills
  • Interviewing / presenting 
  • Editing 
  • Writing 
  • Professional / Industry awareness

Staff sat in front of a red backdrop smiling

Course Highlights

Strong industry connections

Build expertise and bylines through our ties with Football Association of Wales, Welsh Rugby Union, Sky Sports, ITV and BBC Wales.

Cutting-edge facilities

Study at our state-of-the-art facilities, using podcast and TV studios to create real-world content ready for broadcast.

At the heart of sport

Our central Cardiff location near major sports venues like Principality Stadium and Cardiff City Stadium offers you access to world-level events.

Real-world industry practice

Practice real-world journalism, attend press conferences, and publish your work on our Exposport website.

Module Overview

Led by an experienced team, our degree builds your awareness of news sources, digital accuracy, and balance. Improve your writing and presenting for sports journalism, grasp the law and ethics in sports media, and develop practical skills for journalism or communications careers.

Year One
Sports Journalism in Practice 
Essential Sports Reporting 
Fundamentals of Photographic Practice for Sports Journalism 
Sport, Leisure & Social Cultures 
Promotion and Marketing in Sport 
Law and Ethics for Journalists 

Year Two
Advanced Sports Reporting 
Photography / Video for Sport 
Digital Marketing & PR in Sport 
Mobile Sports Journalism 
Behind the Sports Headlines 
Sports Career Portfolio (1) 

Year Three
Media Ethics in Sport 
Major Sports Project
Advanced News Production for Sport
Dissertation
Sports Career Portfolio (2) 

Learn core fundamentals of sports reporting and podcasting, the basics of video and audio editing and broadcast studio operations. Explore how social issues are reflected in sport, how journalism runs alongside promotion, marketing and PR roles, and gain knowledge in journalism law and ethics.

Sports Journalism in Practice 
Develop practical skills for effective sports journalists, including video and audio recording and editing, operating a podcast studio, and developing websites.

Essential Sports Reporting 
Develop your written reporting skills in match reports, previews and features. Cover the USW sports teams to build reporting, organisation and time management skills.

Fundamentals of Photographic Practice for Sports Journalism 
Learn essential sports photography and photojournalism skills. Explore and evaluate briefs and practice conceptually and technically.

Sport, Leisure & Social Cultures 
Explore UK sports media's pivotal issues and events. Learn to analyse sports journalism's societal role, operational practices, and challenges.

Promotion and Marketing in Sport 
Gain insights into sports press officers, marketers, and promoters' roles. Develop robust marketing, PR skills, and brand awareness essential for these areas.

Law and Ethics for Journalists 
Learn essential journalism law for journalism, blogging, and press offices. Build a foundation in ethics and regulation to navigate challenges confidently and safely.

Continue honing your advanced sports reporting skills across TV, radio, online, and print. Develop expert photography and video abilities in capturing sporting events. Explore digital marketing and PR in sports and develop your portfolio via work placements and experience.

Advanced Sports Reporting 
Refine your foundational skills through live reporting, and creating sports articles across TV, radio, online, and print. Use content creation facilities for media features.

Photography / Video for Sport 
Produce polished content showcasing expert use of sound, image, and text. Show off advanced skills creating videos and photos to capture sporting events and achievements. 

Digital Marketing & PR in Sport 
Develop skills in content development, engagement, and crisis management for sports brands and professionals. Contribute to a collaborative group promotion campaign.

Mobile Sports Journalism 
Learn to influence digital storytelling. Create media for online platforms; reflect on industry practices, accuracy, bias and ethics in social media production.

Behind the Sports Headlines 
Grasp sport's societal impact through subjects like fandom, tribalism and media dynamics. Analyse major stories' influence on diverse groups and academic perspectives.

Sports Career Portfolio (1) 
Prepare for a sports journalism career. Explore roles, employment conditions and gain practical skills like CV writing and interview techniques for work experience.

Gain industry experience through a three-week work placement refining your personal branding. Produce professional-grade sports journalism, master live reporting and investigative pieces in a six-week TV project. Research a sports journalism subject for presentation at a two-day event at the atrium.

Media Ethics in Sport 
Explore ethics, highlighting excellence and quality. Examine bias, impartiality, conflicts of interest, sexism, racism in live reporting and the online harassment of journalists.

Major Sports Project 
Produce professional-grade sports journalism, mastering story development, pitching, networking, and reflective practice to define career paths in the industry.

Advanced News Production for Sport
Practise multi-platform live reporting, meeting deadlines. Your six-week TV project producing sports news and investigative pieces has feedback and skill workshops.

 

Dissertation
Plan, research, and write a dissertation on sports media and culture. Develop a pitch and proposal through group workshops, with individual supervision for final production.

Sports Career Portfolio (2) 
Refine your career path and get vital sector experience via a mandatory three-week placement. Receive feedback on personal branding, covering live CVs, showreels and blogs.

Course Highlights

How you’ll learn

As a sports journalism student at USW, you'll take part in 'live' broadcast productions, getting you real world ready. You'll learn by tackling hands-on tasks at real events and fixtures, and through research. Team projects will boost your communication and workplace skills, and your professional confidence. Build a portfolio through workshops, reporting at weekly live news sessions at the  University Sport Park in Treforest, and publishing your work on Exposport. Get industry insights from attending matches and press conferences at EFL Championship football clubs and Six Nations rugby. 

Teaching staff

Our Sports Journalism course is led by experienced industry professionals. Delme Parfitt, with over 20 years in sports journalism, heads the program at USW. He began as a trainee reporter and advanced to senior roles at South Wales Echo, Wales on Sunday, and Westgate Sports Agency. Our other lead lecturer, Julie Kissick, broke down barriers in sports reporting, producing programs like Soccer Sunday and The Front Row at ITV, covering various sports, including boxing. Both bring their extensive network of contacts to help you gain valuable work placements, guaranteeing practical, real-world experiences to build your professional profile.

Placements and work experience

Our Sports Journalism course offers exceptional work placements through an extensive network of media outlets, including Media Wales, Sky Sports News, ITV Wales, BBC Wales, Football Association of Wales (FAW), and football clubs like Cardiff City, Swansea City, and Newport County. You’ll have regular access to press boxes at Cardiff City, Swansea City and Newport County matches, as well as Wales rugby and football internationals. Thanks to our reputation, students are frequently sought after to lead media and comms for semi-professional and community sports clubs. Many have been embedded with the media department at Cardiff City.

Facilities

Our Sports Journalism course is based in Cardiff, at the heart of Wales’ sporting scene. The campus offers access to venues like the Principality Stadium, Viola Arena, Sophia Gardens, and Cardiff City Stadium. You’ll get live experience at our Treforest Sport Park, reporting on British Universities and Colleges Sport. Our state-of-the-art campus boasts industry-standard media facilities, including a multi-camera HDTV studio and a radio studio. The best part is you can hire equipment for free! With nearby media giants like BBC, ITV, Global, and Wales Online on our doorstep, Cardiff is the perfect place to kickstart your sports media career.

Equipment

At our Cardiff Campus we have a vast range of equipment that you will be trained to use as part of your course. To help support your studies we have a Media Loans facility that allows you to hire the equipment, at no cost, for you to then use for your assignments and practical work.  We have both basic and high-end film and photography cameras, portable lighting and sound equipment as well as a range of professional studio recording microphones, instruments and associated equipment to use in our music studios or on location. The team of technical officers and instructors are also available to help you with any queries and technical issues.

Careers and Employability

Graduate careers

Our Sports Journalism course offers broad career pathways in the South Wales sports media scene and beyond. Many of our graduates find full-time roles before graduation. Examples include a media manager at Newport County and a videographer at Cardiff City. Graduates can follow careers as traditional sports journalists, commentators, videographers, social media managers, editors, and graphic designers. Our course also prepares you for roles in internal communications, media departments of Premier League football clubs – one of our graduates currently works for Manchester City -  and other sports organisations.

Careers support

To support your dream career in sport media, the Careers and Employability Team offers a package of development sessions alongside your studies. This includes one-to-one appointments with faculty-based Career Advisers, in person, over the phone, on Skype, or via email through the "Ask a Question" service. We provide extensive online resources to help you consider career options and present yourself well to employers. Resources include psychometric tests, career assessments, a CV builder, an interview simulator, and application help. Our employer database has over 2,000 registered employers targeting USW students, with weekly email job alerts.

Industry partners

The sports journalism course works with an extensive network of industry partners, providing students with valuable work experience and publishing opportunities. These partners include Sky Sports News, Wales Online, Cardiff City, Swansea City, Newport County, the Football Association of Wales, ITV Wales, BBC Wales, and Media Wales, along with various independent PR firms. The course also maintains strong connections with the Welsh Rugby Union and the championship football clubs in South Wales, meaning students gain broad exposure to the vibrant sports media scene in the region.

ENTRY REQUIREMENTS

UCAS Points: 104 (or above)

Typical qualification requirements:

  • A Level: BCC
  • Welsh BACC: Pass the Advanced Welsh Baccalaureate Diploma with Grade C/B in the Skills Challenge Certificate and BC - CC at A Level
  • BTEC: BTEC Extended Diploma Distinction Merit Merit
  • 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:

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.

International applications welcomed:

We welcome international applications with equivalent qualifications of our entry requirements. For more details related to your country of residence, please view our dedicated country pages.

English language requirements

International applicants will need to have achieved an overall of IELTS 6.0 with a minimum of 5.5 in each component/TOEFL 72 overall and a minimum of 18 in reading, 17 in listening, 20 in speaking and 17 in writing or equivalent.

Equivalents can be located on our English Language pages.

If you have previously studied through the medium of English, IELTS might not be required, please visit our country specific page for further details. If your country is not featured, please contact us.

If you do not meet the English entry criteria, please visit our Pre-Sessional course pages.

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

£15,850

per year*

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

Cost: £250

Cost: £200

Cost: £50

Cost: £50

Cost: £30

Cost: £80

USW has computers available on campus and laptops for loan.  However, it is highly recommended that you have your own laptop, capable of running Microsoft Office 365. Students can download a free copy of Adobe software relevant to the course.

Cost: £500

Students travelling to matches, press conferences etc and undertaking work placements may incur additional costs.

Cost: Variable

Media Loans

You can hire a range of equipment, for your assignments and practical work, for free from our Media Loans facility.

Media Loans

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.

THE AMOUNT OF KIT, EQUIPMENT, SOFTWARE AND FACILITIES ON CAMPUS THAT ARE AT YOUR DISPOSAL ARE PRACTICALLY INFINITE. I’VE BEEN ABLE TO PRODUCE PODCASTS, DOCUMENTARY FILMS, AND WORK FOR PONTYPRIDD RFC AS PART OF THEIR MEDIA TEAM.

Zacharie Johnson-Pillon

Sports Journalism student

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.

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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Next Steps

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

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.

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Student Life
Exterior view of the University's Cardiff Campus.
Cardiff Campus
A double room at our Pontypridd accommodation featuring a large window.
Accommodation