Sport Media - BSc (Hons) Degree

This degree can be studied as a three-year full-time degree or a four-year full-time degree that includes a year of foundational study.

We offer two foundation year routes for our undergraduate sport degrees; each delivered at a different campus.

You can choose to study the Sport Foundation Year at our Cyncoed Campus, or the Management Foundation Year at our Llandaff Campus, depending on your interests and preferred location.

Whichever route you choose, successful completion will allow you to progress onto one of our undergraduate sport degrees.

Find out more about the foundation years:

• Foundation Leading to Sport
• Foundation Leading to Management (Sport)

The foundation year is intended to prepare you for your subsequent years of studying, offering you the chance to strengthen your skills, knowledge and confidence. The foundation year will be relevant to:

1. Students who aspire to enrol onto the first year of a science-based honours degree programme within the Cardiff School of Health Sciences, who have not achieved the standard entry requirements to enter at year one of the chosen degree.
2. Students who have not studied subjects that provide the necessary background within the scientific disciplines required to enter at year one of the chosen degree.
3. Mature students who have been out of the formal education system for some time.

Please note: You will need to apply using a specific UCAS code if you wish to undertake the 4 years including foundation.

The BSc (Hons) Sport Media degree programme offers you a module framework which provides the fundamental underpinning knowledge, skills and understanding to be able to gain employment in a creative and dynamic role within the fast moving and exciting world of sport media.

You will develop and master a wide spectrum of media and broadcast journalism production skills, learning to self-shoot and edit and sharpen your journalistic instinct and editorial judgment. You will critically examine the reciprocal relationship between socio-political issues, modern media coverage and professional sport.

You will also study elements of sports marketing, media law, and analyse how ethics, a sense of fairness, impartiality, accuracy and a robust knowledge of regulations and rights play a crucial part in operating within the modern sport media, marketing and broadcasting landscape.

Year 1 (120 credits)

In your first year you’ll establish the creative, technical, and academic foundation needed for the course. You’ll explore audio and video production to enable creative exploration, helping you to develop deeper skill development and more ambitious project work. You’ll be supported in the transition from school or college into university study, while embedding key industry-facing competencies from the outset. You’ll also be challenged to incorporate ethical thinking considering emerging technologies such as AI, ensuring that you begin your studies with an informed, reflective approach to content creation.

All compulsory modules:

• Professional and Academic Development (40 credits)*
• Sound Waves: Sport in Podcasts & Audio (20 credits)
• Sport Content Creation: Socials & Screens (20 credits)
• Introduction to Sport Marketing (20 credits)
• Reporting Sport Today: Journalism in a Changing World (20 credits)

Year 2 (120 credits)

Your second year builds on the foundation of year one by immersing you in applied hands-on experiences that reflect the breadth of the sport media landscape. You’ll explore varied sectors of the industry through project-based learning rather than a single fixed work placement, broadening your understanding and adaptability. You will be challenged to undertake project work that is underpinned by research and develop ideas for independent research in your final year of study. You’ll also get the opportunity to explore optional modules from outside the field of sport media, allowing you to tailor your academic journey, pursue personal passions, and bring fresh perspectives into your sport media work.

Compulsory modules (100 credits):

• Project-Based Learning (40 credits)*
• Sport Media Lab: Live Projects (20 credits)
• Applied Sports Marketing Communication (20 credits)
• Sport Ethics (20 credits)

Optional modules (choose 20 credits)**:

• Nutrition: Macro and Micronutrients (20 credits)*
• Fundamentals of Strength and Conditioning (20 credits)
• Personal Training for Public Health (20 credits)
• Sport, Health and Society (20 credits)
• Sport Performance Analysis (20 credits)
• Sport Development: Context and Challenges (20 credits)
• Sustainable Development and Sport (20 credits)
• Dance Education (20 credits)
• Models-Based Practice (20 credits)
• Athlete Learning: Coaching with Sport Science Data (20 credits)

Year 3 (120 credits)

Your final year represents the culmination of your journey, with two substantial, 40-credit modules that demand both creative and academic excellence. The Media Portfolio module will challenge you to produce a polished body of work showcasing your professional capabilities, while the Final Project module develops your ability to conduct independent, rigorous inquiry into a chosen aspect of sport media. Together, these modules provide a capstone experience that demonstrates both creative mastery and scholarly insight, ensuring that as a graduate, you are ready to contribute meaningfully to a dynamic and competitive industry.

Compulsory (100 credits):

• Final Project (40 credits)*
• Launchpad: Your Career Portfolio (40 credits)
• Strategic Brand Management (20 credits)

Optional modules (20 credits)**:

• Strength & Conditioning Coaching (20 credits)
• Nutrition in Sport and Exercise (20 credits)
• Exercise Practitioner (20 credits)
• Ethical Issues in Sport (20 credits)
• Sociology of Sports and Physical Cultures (20 credits)
• Sport Development in Action: Policy, Process and Practice (20 credits)
• Applied Interdisciplinary Practice (20 credits)
• Managing High Performance Sport (20 credits)

The overall goal of the course is to ensure that you leave not only with strong theoretical understanding, but also with an industry-relevant portfolio, the confidence to navigate an evolving professional landscape, and the versatility to thrive across a range of roles in sport, media, and beyond.

*Available through the medium of Welsh.

**We believe your education should reflect your interests, ambitions, and future goals. That’s why on this degree we are offering you a bank of option modules from which to select, enabling you to shape your learning journey. Having a bank of options from across a range of sports related disciplines in year two and three will let you personalise your degree, deepen your expertise, work with students and staff from different degrees, and build a wider range of skills for a changing world. Whilst we are offering you a choice of optional modules these will delivered subject to demand and availability.

Effective learning, teaching and assessment methods underpin the educational aims and the learning outcomes of all our programmes and modules. Throughout our undergraduate degrees we focus on providing the authentic learning experiences to both challenge and develop all our students. Authentic learning is a learner-centred approach in which you’ll develop your knowledge and skills by engaging in, and addressing, real life problems that demand the use of higher order thinking skills, real world resources and tools while thinking and acting like an expert within the context of your degree. Across the range of undergraduate sport degrees, you’ll experience “project and practice ways of working”, where you’ll experience working on real challenges, projects or problems set by people and communities that value to support and solutions that you can offer and acknowledge the value of learning through real experiences.

To facilitate authentic learning, we utilise a diverse range of learning and teaching methods that may include lectures, seminars, workshops, tutorials and practical sessions. All of these are supported by our Virtual Learning Environment which is an integral but flexible aspect of the learning package that supports your needs. Typically, lead lectures introduce key topics, concepts and challenges, whilst seminars, tutorials, workshops and practical sessions focus on the application of key concepts with the aim of enhancing your student experience and engagement. We work hard to provide authentic, student-centred learning opportunities that deliver a high quality and flexible learning environment but focuses on enabling you to develop into a flexible, highly employable graduate of the future.

Learning and teaching methods will also emphasise and facilitate the development of your critical reasoning and encourage the integration of practice and theory. Throughout your studies, you will experience both tutor-led learning and self-directed methods of learning, increase independence and reflection and encourage you to develop a positive attitude toward lifelong learning. Along the way you’ll have the support of a Personal Academic Tutor who is there to support you pastorally and academically during your time at Cardiff Met.

We aim to help you to develop into a reflective professional and critical scholar.

In your sport degree at Cardiff Met, you will encounter a learning experience from induction to graduation that is coherent, challenging and develops your confidence, competence and identity within your programme of study.

Specific features of the learning experience on Sport Media include:

• Hands-on from day one: Learn by doing – through real-world projects, live reporting, and content creation across sport journalism, podcasting, video, and social media.
• Not just journalism: Go beyond traditional courses. This degree blends sports media with marketing, production, communications, and digital strategy – preparing you for a broad range of careers.
• Big city, big sport: Based in Cardiff – a global sports city and media hub – you’ll have access to elite facilities, major events, and the chance to report on live sport throughout your course.
• Ethical and legal awareness: You’ll learn how to navigate media law, image rights, and ethical challenges – key skills for working responsibly in sport media.
• Ahead of the curve: With modules exploring AI, analytics, and emerging tech, you’ll graduate ready for the future of sport media – not just the present.

The assessment strategies for each module vary to ensure that most appropriate method is implemented for your area of study. Modes of assessment are designed to both enhance but also challenge your learning experience whilst ensuring that you have fulfilled the learning outcomes linked to each module. Assessment also ensures that you have achieved the standard required to progress to the next stage or to qualify for an award. The modules are designed to support your learning experience by providing opportunities for you to engage in formative and summative assessments to test your knowledge, ability, skill, and critical understanding. The undergraduate modules are assessed using a diverse range of assessment methods. For example:

• Written coursework
• Group challenges
• Oral presentations
• Portfolios of work and evidence
• Seen and unseen exams
• Practical skills
• Viva voce examinations
• Professional discussions
• Industry placements and situational learning
• Other activities designed to assess, develop, and enhance academic and employability skills

You will be expected to complete a final project as part of the assessment of your honour’s degree. Final projects are major pieces of work that may be research, enterprise, consultancy or community-based projects. These fit alongside the specific media portfolios that evidence your journey and work across the programme, serving as a showcase to potential employers.

The nature of the Sport Media degree requires you to demonstrate both theory (evidence-based practice) and application (practical skills), and therefore assessments within Sport Media modules include both theoretical assessments alongside practical or technical assessments in applied settings such as projects, events, pitches, and group activities utilising a diverse range of media.

All undergraduate sport degrees are underpinned by the Cardiff School of Sport and Health Sciences employability framework. This framework has been developed as a holistic curricular and extra-curricular approach to embedding employability across the undergraduate portfolio, and ensures programmes recognise and develop opportunities to enhance your employability by blending the following elements:

• Disciplinary knowledge
• Work based learning
• Work related learning
• Career development planning
• Entrepreneurship and enterprise education
• Graduate skills and lifelong learning
• Developing professional identity

During your first year of study, you will get the opportunity to undertake professional development activities across a diverse range of industry relevant areas including sport coaching, exercise training, and health and safety. These opportunities will ensure that you have the appropriate qualifications and experience to progress with your studies and, where your programme requires it, apply for one of the many work placement opportunities on offer both on and off campus. We will also support you to seek opportunities to work or study abroad or engage in a year in industry.

Specific features of the careers and employability on Sport Media include:

• Digital-first approach: Build skills in social media, video editing, podcasting, and content strategy. You’ll be ready for roles in fast-moving digital sport environments.
• Career-ready portfolio: By the time you graduate, you’ll have a professional-standard media portfolio to showcase your talents – something to show not just say on your CV.
• Work with industry: Benefit from Cardiff Met’s strong links with sports clubs, media outlets, and governing bodies. You’ll gain experience, contacts, and insight through placements and real client briefs.
• Entrepreneurial edge: Want to start your own channel, podcast, or business? You’ll learn the leadership and entrepreneurial skills to do that too.

Graduates from this course are now working in the professional sport media industry with BBC Sport, Sky Sports, LiveWire Sport and Cardiff City Football Club. Many students also pursue their own opportunities and set up businesses based on ideas that they have generated during their studies.

There is on-going enterprise support available from the Centre for Entrepreneurship designed to help provide the best chance to create a successful enterprise. This includes business mentoring, funding advice, free office space and networking opportunities.

Other students might choose to continue onto further study through our MSc Sport Broadcast programme and might progress to doctoral level studies. You can also progress onto more generic master’s level media, broadcast, marketing and management programmes including the Master of Business Administration (MBA) at Cardiff Met or other Higher Education institutions offering similar courses.

Typical Offers

The following requirements are based on typical offers relevant to entering year 1 of the degree.

If you do not meet these entry requirements, we also offer two foundation year routes that would allow progression to Year 1 upon successful completion. Find out more about these two foundation routes in the ‘Foundation Year’ section (above) on this page.

• Tariff points: 104-112
• Contextual offer: See our contextual offers page.
• GCSE: Five GCSEs at Grade C / 4 or above to include English Language / Welsh First Language, Mathematics / Mathematics – Numeracy.
• English Language Requirement: Academic IELTS 6.0 overall with at least 5.5 in all elements, or equivalent.
• A level subjects: Three A levels to include grade B. No specific subjects required. Welsh Advanced Skills Baccalaureate considered as a third subject.
• BTEC National / Cambridge Technical Extended Diploma: DMM
• T Level: Merit.
• Access to Higher Education Diploma: 15 Level 3 credits at Distinction and 30 Level 3 credits at Merit. No specific subjects required.
• International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma: Higher Level Grade 6. No specific subjects required.
• Irish Leaving Certificate: 3 x H2. No specific subjects required. Higher level subjects only considered, with a minimum grade H4.
• Scottish Advanced Highers: Grade C. No specific subjects required. Scottish Highers are also considered, either on their own or in combination with Advanced Highers.

Combinations of the above qualifications are accepted if they meet our minimum requirements. If your qualifications aren’t listed, please contact Admissions or refer to the UCAS Course Search.

Further information on Overseas qualifications can be found here.

If you are a mature applicant, have relevant experience or RPL that you would like us to consider, please contact Admissions.

How to Apply

Further information on how to apply can be found here.

For general enquiries, please contact the Admissions Team on 029 2041 6044 or email askadmissions@cardiffmet.ac.uk.

For course specific enquiries, please contact the Programme Support Team:

• Email: CSSHSLTSE@cardiffmet.ac.uk