The modules on our MSc Sustainable Sport Business 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.

Compulsory modules

Sustainability and Sport (15 credits)

The module aims are to identify key global sustainability issues, and related sustainable development principles, and to examine the two-way relationships between the described sustainability issues and the sport sector, including how sport both contributes to, and is affected by global sustainability issues.

Contemporary Sport Business (15 credits)

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.

Grand Challenges (15 credits)

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.

Optional modules

Sport Business Statistics and Analytics (15 credits)

The aim of this module is to understand the importance of data-driven decision making and strategy formulation, and how statistical analysis and data visualisation assist in identifying sport business trends and solutions.

Leadership, Diversity and Change in the Sport Industry (15 credits)

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.

Sport, Politics, and Diplomacy (15 credits)

The aim of this module is to understand the role that sport plays in political and diplomatic issues at a national and international level.

Using contemporary examples from developed, transitioning, developing, and fuel-based economies, the module will explore how sport can be used to positive (e.g., facilitating socio-economic plans) or negative (e.g., whitewashing human rights violations) ends. In doing so, the module aims to promote a critical, evidence-based understanding of the interplay between sport, politics, and diplomacy.

Compulsory modules

Sport Ecology (15 credits)

The aims of this module are to provide students with an understanding of:

  • The impact of climate change and environmental degradation on sports performance and business at the community, elite, and pro levels. Using contemporary examples from varied geographic contexts, the module will explore how sport can identify, interpret, and adapt to mounting climate challenges such as extreme heat conditions and natural disasters.
  • The ways sport organisations and sportspeople can reduce emissions and sport's impact on the natural environment. In doing so, the module aims to promote a critical, evidence-based understanding of the interplay between sport and the natural environment.
  • How to quantify the impacts of a sport organisation on the environment and measure the impacts moving forwards, using greenhouse gas reporting as an example.

Sport Event Management (15 credits)

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.

Dissertation (60 credits)

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 to embark on their individual research project and they will be guided through the three 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.
  • A full professional placement within an organisation during which time they will complete a project as part of their role in agreement with the organisation (subject to a suitable placement position being obtained) 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:

Sport Public Relations and Communication (15 credits)

To understand the importance of communication with a sport organisation's stakeholders (e.g., fans, media, sponsors, community, employees), the various channels and mechanisms used to communicate with such stakeholders, and to identify the most appropriate channels of communication for a given situation depending on several contextual factors.

The module will provide students with an understanding of the principles of communication and public relations and the ability to employ communication strategies specifically in sport-related contexts.

Leadership Development in Sport (15 credits)

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.

Business Models and Entrepreneurship in the Sport Industry (15 credits)

Develop an entrepreneurial, design thinking mindset by exploring multiple sport business contexts, to enhance awareness of the scope and diversity of business models within sport.

On completion of this module students should be able to:

  • Demonstrate awareness and understanding of the scope and diversity of business models within the sport industry.
  • Create and develop a new sport business idea and associated business model canvas using key entrepreneurship concepts.

Trade Law and Sustainability (15 credits)

This module aims to equip students with a broader understanding of sustainability issues as they have evolved historically in the international arena, and have more recently been linked to inter/national trade law and policy. Sustainability is conceived as encompassing not only environmental and climate sustainability but also developmental sustainability and gender and labour justice.

The module will develop students' comprehension of conceptual and normative understandings of sustainability, and the role that inter/national trade law, policy and practice play in either enabling governments and international organisations to tackle environmental, gender and labour challenges, or preventing them from doing so.

Choose one of:

Collaborative Project (15 credits)

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.

Sport Integrity (15 credits)

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

Dissertation (60 credits)

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 to embark on their individual research project and they will be guided through the three 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.
  • A full professional placement within an organisation during which time they will complete a project as part of their role in agreement with the organisation (subject to a suitable placement position being obtained) 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.