BA (Hons) Sports Business and Sports Broadcasting

In order for you to achieve your university and future workplace goals, you need to be aware of a number of personal qualities and behaviours that can impact your ability to succeed. It is also important that you understand the industry and societal context in which you plan to work. This module aims to introduce you to personal and professional factors relevant to employment in the sport industry, and to enhance your awareness of the industrial landscape. Additionally, it will support you in developing some essential academic skills for higher education (such as academic writing and referencing). The module will introduce you to a wide range of perspectives, philosophies, and principles of critical and ethical thinking which will equip you with the competencies and confidence to achieve your academic and employability goals.

The contemporary sport industry has embraced a number of dynamic innovations used in other sectors, helping to transform both its management and administration, steering it in a more professional manner in some aspects of sport, yet not others. Growing revenue has taken on increasing importance yet some sports still have issues with the media monopoly of others. Resistance to change, amateur practices and poor treatment of some players remain within the industry. You will explore these and other key issues through examining how the core parts of the business (marketing, finance, the media, sponsorship, event management, leadership and HR) operate. You will analyse the development of sport and governance of both elite and grassroots organisations.

This module is an introduction to the core principles of sports broadcasting in which you will learn how to tell stories with words, pictures and sound. You will understand the grammar of broadcasting and the importance of interviewing to gather relevant information for broadcast content. Operating often within a TV studio environment, you will gain practical experience in how to use industry-standard video and audio equipment to gather this information and will be required to demonstrate technical skills to edit this content into coherent storylines using industry software.

The sports industry does not exist in a vacuum. Rather, it is an environment which cuts across much of wider society, including politics, media, and popular culture. This module, drawing both on historical and contemporary examples, will explore the place of sport within the wider world. The module will aim to develop your academic understanding of the growth of sports within wider historical and theoretical frameworks, and how those frameworks continue to shape the present sports and media industries. The module will introduce a wide range of academic concepts, principles and case studies that will equip with a greater understanding and appreciation of the cultural significances of sport, past and present.

Digital media is a fundamental part of the sport business landscape; a key stakeholder that looks set to define much of the industry’s future. This module combines theoretical and practical components to review key elements of the business of producing and consuming digital media. This module will introduce you to the academic and theoretical underpinnings of digital media business, and how these manifest themselves within the industry. This module will also allow you to put those ideas into practice through practical sessions dedicated to producing sports media content that would be competitive in an everchanging business environment.

Building on the Principles of Sport Broadcasting module in semester one, this module will focus more specifically on the skills and knowledge required for the profession of broadcast journalism. You will identify the individual elements that are required to construct a sport news package for television and radio and will analyse the concept of news value in detail. You will be taught the specific professional skills required to write for broadcast and trained in how to voice your scripts to the appropriate standard. You will demonstrate the ability to recognise a news angle, operate to a news deadline within a fixed timeframe and apply the conventions of broadcast journalism to create original sport news content. You will also further develop your core practical skills in filming/recording and editing broadcast content using industry equipment and will understand how to illustrate your news story with evidential video footage that is recorded using industry techniques.

Following on from your previous training regarding personal qualities and behaviours that can impact your ability to succeed, this module focuses on developing your practical skills relevant to a workplace environment. This module will ask you to apply your knowledge and personal skillset to problem-based learning scenarios, and live projects. You will learn project management skills, develop your personal pragmatism, and enhance your industry-based interests and understanding. You will work both as part of a team and independently, developing essential aspects of your emotional, social, and professional self.

A complete 360-degree approach is adopted for this module, as you understand how editorial ideas are conceived, commissioned, produced and broadcast within a deadline-driven environment. Live projects will be at its heart, as you learn employable skills of the workplace: how to pitch ideas that appeal to an executive producer or external client and a target audience, and how to produce content to an agreed and specific brief. Core practical broadcast skills are improved as you operate both individually and in collaboration with your peers to produce visual packages that include presenters filmed on location as part of layered video narratives. One of the main topics for the module will be the three stages of location filming – pre-production, field producing and post-production – and the teamwork involved to operate within a production crew. Your video production skills will be developed to a standard appropriate to Level 5 and you will write a reflective journal throughout the duration of the module to record your journey of learning.

This module covers the topics of media law and ethics, and how they control and influence the work of journalists and the media, with specific reference to the sports media and football. As digital technology increasingly affects both the speed of news delivery across a range of platforms, so too does the scrutiny of media behaviour. Privacy and defamation have become key elements of media law and ethics. You will learn how diverse the coverage of sport activity is used to entice audiences, entertain, promote, market and sell, and how it is used in launching and creating specialist media sectors. You will learn about the legal and ethical framework within which a sports journalist must operate, taking into account OFCOM regulation and the Editors’ Code of Practice.

As a practitioner in your discipline you will be required to engage in evidence-based practice. This module supports your ability to become an evidence-based practitioner by providing you with an introduction to the processes involved in conducting research within your discipline and equipping you with the skills and knowledge to be able to critically analyse the work of others. This module will build on skills and knowledge which you will have acquired throughout your course so far, and has been designed to prepare you for conducting your own independent project as part of the Professional Project module at Level 6. Specifically, this module will enable you to gain an applied understanding of the research process. This will involve identifying a contemporary industry-relevant issue; developing project aims and objectives; understanding reflexivity and the role you play in the design and execution of a project; understanding methodologies and different methods of data collection, analysis, and interpretation; and appreciating the importance of ethical practice. The delivery of this module will be facilitated by your engagement in a research project to investigate contemporary industry-relevant issues.

You will explore longer-form audio storytelling in this module, producing an audio feature of 8 to 10 minutes in duration for your main summative assignment, which will also introduce you to some of the elements relevant to full television and radio documentaries at Level 6. You will study how professional audio storytellers use a combination of conventions to maintain the interest of the listener over an extended period of time; and you will understand how they build emotional engagement by the way in which it is crafted in post-production

This module focuses on television studio production and the business of broadcasting, such as production co-ordination, budgeting and legal compliance. You will understand how the rules of the Ofcom Code apply to the realities of live studio production, and how business management teams oversee the financial, logistical and legal complexities of sport broadcasting. You will be introduced to the different roles within a television studio, from director to autocue operator, and from presenter to vision mixer. You will build a first-hand understanding of how this vital sector of the sport broadcasting industry operates by producing original television studio content as part of a production team displaying employable skills in storytelling, production technique and teamwork. Live projects will provide the content for these studio programmes, enriching your experience of direct contact with business and industry. To demonstrate your overall understanding of the business of broadcasting, you will individually submit a production manager’s report to accompany your contribution to the finished TV studio programme, explaining how the different business elements taught during the module relate to studio production, using your studio project as a case study.

This module provides you with the opportunity to synthesise the knowledge and skills you will have developed during the course of your studies and independently design, develop and execute an individual professional project. This project aims to investigate an original contemporary industry-relevant issue and will be a platform through which you will demonstrate the knowledge, skills, understanding and expertise you have developed in your discipline thus far. It is expected that your project output will contribute to industry practice and/or academic and practitioner knowledge. To achieve this, you will investigate an original contemporary industry-relevant issue and make judgments on the basis of sound evidence and therefore, the project will be research- and inquiry-based. The project will be directly relevant to your course and will be produced and disseminated in the format best suited to the project aims and to developing a career of your choice. The project will build on the L5 Research Methods assessment and you will be working closely with a project supervisor who will provide guidance and support throughout your project.

For this module, you have the opportunity to produce a video documentary with duration of 14 to 15 minutes on a sport topic with journalistic value. You will be taught the core skills required to make a powerful documentary film: the narrative techniques in non-fiction visual storytelling; the importance of access to the subject to enable the filmmaker to get ‘inside’ the story being told; and the necessity for decision-making based on ethical considerations. You will learn the history and theory of television documentaries to understand their influence upon observational and participatory documentaries today, and there will be three clearly defined stages to the production process for this module. Firstly, you will present your proposed documentary idea in a detailed outline of the project, which will form the basis of the first assignment. When you begin filming, you will do so in the knowledge that the lecturer will offer advice and guidance during the production process; and the final stage is in post-production when you receive feedback on the ‘first cut’ of your film before submission, a procedure that replicates industry best practice.

This module will teach the evolution of commentary styles and techniques and demonstrate industry-standard practical skills in both radio broadcasting and television delivery. The course will hone your skills in both the vocal delivery and the linguistic skills required in sport commentary and match reporting, and it is structured in such a way to see tangible benefits and improvements through a rich mix of formative and summative coursework. You will also understand the skills and conventions required for successful post-match interviews. You will be assessed individually on elements reflecting employable sport broadcasting skills: your knowledge and execution of sport commentary, the quality of your interviews after the sport event, and your proficiency in sport reporting and event summarising in a studio setting.

Following on from your previous training regarding personal qualities and behaviours that can impact your ability to succeed, this module focuses on practical application of that knowledge during a workplace visit. Until now, your modules have provided learning opportunities about the industry and societal context in which you plan to work. This module aims to introduce you to a workplace environment. Doing so will allow you to enhance your awareness of the industrial landscape through experience. This module creates a space for you to apply competencies developed in your modules to date to a real-life setting, leading to experiential and reflective learning.

The sports business and sports media environments continues to evolve at a remarkable pace, with digital technologies at the heart of this continuing change. As a sports business professional, critically evaluating and deconstructing the nature of these changes, and what the future holds for the industry, is of fundamental importance. This module, as a Level 6 academic module, aims to drive forward your analytical skills and develop you for an industry that refuses to stand still. This module will explore a wide range of philosophies and theory related to various ‘futures’ for the sports industry which will equip you with advanced levels of understanding, competency, and confidence to enter a variety of digital futures.

This module will provide you with the opportunity to identify the skills, competencies and experience required for successful development to embarking on their university degree and successfully completing it and progressing on to a range of potential future career areas. Central to the developmental process is for you to cultivate the reflective skills, openness and self- awareness to enable you to assess what you are doing, identify areas for improvement, and confidently receive and give constructive feedback.

This module will provide you with the opportunity to identify the skills, competencies and experience required for employment. This will support you in your ‘transition’ from school, college or the work place towards degree level study. You will begin to recognise the areas for your own personal professional development (including emotional, social, physical, cultural and cognitive intelligences) through taught and workshop activities. This will allow you identify attributes that are important to develop that are important for your career in the sports professional related to your programme.

The module will introduce you to the research processes when undertaking a project within your field of study. You will explore the important ethical considerations when planning and conducting a research project safely to analyse a problem or question specific to your subject area. This will require you to utilise and apply key research skills alongside selecting appropriate methods to collect data and report significant findings regarding your research question.

This module introduces you to many of the challenging and complex contemporary issues faced in the rapidlychanging and demanding, world of sport. It will allow you to build and consolidate knowledge, through understanding of key issues within the broad arena of sport in a discursive manner that will underpin your future work. You will be encouraged to research events, themes and issues that have affected the world of sport and, in some cases, changed the structure and behaviour of the sports industry.

The module will provide you with the foundations of a range of concepts, models and practical skills related to the sports media industry. This module will introduce you to the basic skills, roles and responsibilities of the media. The module enables you to examine the development and growth of the media industry within society and the contemporary issues related to the media environment, developing group work skills and information acquisition in preparation for the delivery of presentations using appropriate spoken language and terminology.

This module provides you with an introduction to the application of media law and ethics within the field of sports media and journalism. You will begin to identify the legal and ethical framework within which a sports journalist must operate (IPSO, OFCOM and ethics). You will begin to discuss media is applied to sport across a range of media platforms (including print, broadcast and online). You will begin to review how new technologies are used in, and impact upon, today’s media industry with a practical application. You will begin to develop your knowledge of the demands of the digital age to work professionally in the sector.