BA (Hons) Sports Journalism

This practical, hands-on course focuses on making sure you get the job of your dreams at the end of it. We work closely with industry and in the first year you will be given the opportunity to write for a professional sports website (Prost International) and get access to Premier League, Women’s Super League, and Football League games. A second year student will spend two weeks all-expenses work placement at Chelsea Football Club. In the third year we work closely with major web company Planet Sport, which takes on many of our students and gives them the opportunity to impress – which can lead to a job covering sports like football, Formula 1 and golf after graduation. We also work closely with the UK’s biggest media organisation Reach, football clubs such as Preston, Burnley, Bolton and Fleetwood, and other major sporting bodies, to ensure you get the chance to gain vital experience while still a student.

Journalism is, in a nutshell, telling stories and we teach you how to do that in a variety of ways, from written to TV, podcasts to digital video, social media to magazines.

You’ll not only learn how to operate as a sports journalist, with the personal and technical skills a professional journalist needs, but you’ll also study a range of issues in sport – exploring its development into a multi-million-pound industry.

From day one, you’ll operate as a journalist. It’s hands-on and hard work, but it’s also a lot of fun. You’ll join our newsroom environment, report on matches and press conferences, and get to interview a wide variety of sportsmen and women. You’ll also receive lectures from many of the major players in the sporting media. Recent guests include BBC Sports editor Dan Roan, football managers Ian Holloway and Simon Grayson, Premier League referee Anthony Taylor, and TV presenters Gabby Logan and Craig Slater.
You’ll learn by doing, ensuring that you have all you need to thrive in the digital age – ready to follow in the footsteps of previous graduates to report on the Olympics or Champions League football, working with organisations like the BBC, Sky or ESPN.

BA Hons Sports Journalism at UCLan is one of only six sports journalism courses in the UK accredited by the Broadcast Journalism Training Council (BJTC), (partners with the BBC and Sky). We will also pay for you to sit your NCTJ (National Council for the Training of Journalists). You can study abroad in the second year if you wish and we regularly arrange trips abroad (in May 2019 we took our students to China for 10 days).

As of September 2022, we'll be celebrating 60 years of Journalism at UCLan. UCLan Journalism's strong heritage started in 1962 and has continued to offer high-quality, innovative journalism courses that confront vital issues facing the profession.