The modules on our MSc Sport Business and Leadership programme have been carefully put together to give you the most up-to-date and relevant set of skills and knowledge for progressing in your chosen career. For more information about part-time study patterns, please contact the School/Department.

Compulsory modules

The aims of this module are to deliver a thorough grounding in the main leadership models, and the issues that impact on leadership practice in the sport environment. It is intended as an introduction to leadership and will be the theoretical foundation upon which other sport leadership units are built.

The aims of this module are to:

  • Introduce students to recent developments in leadership research with a focus on diversity and change in sport business.
  • Become familiar with a range of leadership challenges sport executives face when managing diverse teams to better understand the adoption of leadership styles in different parts of the sport business industry.
  • Be able to construct an argument and defend a position on key diversity and inclusion debates in sports.

The aims of this module are:

  • To explore the sport business industry across diverse sectors, including Sport Marketing, Sport Management, Innovation and Digital Technologies, Sustainability and Sport Leadership.
  • To advance students' knowledge and understanding of research and insight embedded in the sport business industry.
  • To expose students to contemporary trends in the sport business industry and advance their understanding of the challenges, opportunities and cultures surrounding decision making, growth and strategy.
  • To inform and prepare students for their programme specific modules, as well as their dissertation module, through engagement with research and insight within specific relevant contexts.

The aim of this module is to give students an opportunity to explore grand challenges facing our global society and to propose imaginative solutions to specific challenges in one or more country.

Students will critically reflect on the United Nations Sustainability Development Goals and think about how Loughborough University's Creating Better Futures. Together Strategy might contribute to them.

Students will engage with ideas and approaches to possible solutions from their own programme and gain diverse insights from Loughborough University London's interdisciplinary ecosystem. This will involve solution-oriented thinking and a balance between criticality and possibility, leading to a deep understanding of grand challenges and imagining creative responses to them.

Compulsory modules

The aims of this module are to create an awareness of how critical reflection can facilitate improved leadership and personal growth in sport management practice.

The aims of this module are to support students in their personal leadership development and to evaluate the effectiveness of leadership development programmes in the sport industry.

The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject, business problem or research question in depth and to research the issues surrounding the subject or background to the problem.

The module will equip the student with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding for their individual research project and they will be guided through the two options available to them to complete their dissertation:

  • A desk based research project that could be set by an organisation or could be a subject of the student's choice.
  • A project that involves collection of primary data from within an organisation or based on lab and/or field experiments.

Students will achieve a high level of understanding in the subject area and produce a written thesis or project report which will discuss this research in depth and with rigour.

Optional modules

Choose one of the following:

The aims of this module are to:

  • Introduce students to key concepts in sport sponsorship.
  • Develop an understanding of the nature of sport sponsorship.

The aims of this module are to provide a thorough understanding of the practical, operational management of sport events from major events and elite sports competitions through mass participation events to grassroots and participation sport.

Practical issues will be identified and presented from a wide range of actors across the main operational and organisational areas for the delivery of sport events, including energy use, waste management, travel and procurement, among others.

The overriding theme of the module will be on managing events in a more sustainable way that mitigates and adapts to current changing social, economic and environmental conditions, with a focus on climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution.

The module will include visits to venue partners where these can be arranged.

Choose one of the following:

The aims of this module are to:

  • Provide students with an opportunity to be exposed to project-based teamwork in diverse settings (understood in this context as involving a range of multidisciplinary, multicultural and demographic elements in differing configurations), aiming to strengthen their cooperative and collaborative working skills and competence, while raising awareness and appreciation of diversity itself.
  • Provide students with hands on experience of identifying, framing and resolving practice oriented and real-world based challenges and problems, using creativity, critical enquiry and appropriate tools to achieve valuable and relevant solutions.
  • Support the development of students' ability to engage in critical enquiry and individual reflection, as well as to apply individual strengths and skills, building on their own educational backgrounds.
  • Provide students with opportunities for networking with stakeholders, organisations and corporations, aiming to enhance the competence and skills needed to connect to relevant parties and build up future professional opportunities.

The aims of this module are to:

  • Examine the nature of sports integrity and the threats to it presented by the manipulation of sporting outcomes and corrupt governance practices in both national and international contexts, including key legal and regulatory areas.
  • Develop a greater awareness of ethical issues in relation to combatting sport integrity issues.
  • Explain the role of the board, and senior management, in providing organisational leadership and implementing cultural change, with particular emphasis on composition and values-based leadership models.
  • Consider the importance of professional conduct, athlete reputation and public confidence in sport.
  • Critically review a range of legal and regulatory issues in sport.

Compulsory modules

The aims of this module are to give the student the opportunity to study a subject, business problem or research question in depth and to research the issues surrounding the subject or background to the problem.

The module will equip the student with the relevant skills, knowledge and understanding for their individual research project and they will be guided through the two options available to them to complete their dissertation:

  • A desk based research project that could be set by an organisation or could be a subject of the student's choice.
  • A project that involves collection of primary data from within an organisation or based on lab and/or field experiments.

Students will achieve a high level of understanding in the subject area and produce a written thesis or project report which will discuss this research in depth and with rigour.