My amazing experience with International Sport Management at Cardiff Met

Hi, my name is Will Fisher and I have recently completed both my undergraduate and postgraduate studies here at Cardiff Met in BSc (Hons) Sport Management and MSc International Sport Management.

Alongside the welcoming on boarding by the university, one of the incredible opportunities made available to me during my second year was the chance to undertake a study abroad programme. In February 2020 I flew to New Zealand to study at Auckland University of Technology, these studies ultimately shaped my future career without even me realising.

Up until university, I never really had a particular keen interest in education or learning however this was the first time I really enjoyed it and was then keen to understand the practices of management and how they correlated into sporting organisations from around the globe.

Alongside the resources and academic support at the university; our class was closely bonded group, due to both its size and the fact that many of us had completed the undergraduate together, which helped us learn collaboratively. During my second semester, I kept seeing job ads on LinkedIn for the Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games, this drew me back to a section of my undergrad where we looked at how they had successfully won the bid.

Alongside supporting the city in football, this fuelled the opportunity to put my studies into practice and pushed me to take a leap of faith and apply. During my role of Staffing Lead, one element of the job was to oversee the preparation and allocation of operational documentation and led a team of deployment supervisors. Concurrently, I was learning about leadership styles and practices within my master’s course. Therefore, the job enabled me to put those learned traits of great leadership into practice straight away.

Taking on this job at the same time as finishing my masters put into practice time management, self-motivation and discipline all three of which would assist with my thesis deadline in January 2023. However, not wanting to miss the wave of post event jobs, I still completed several freelance projects post Birmingham 2022 with comedy festivals and Hogmanay to end the year. Following the submission of my thesis I continued on a stream of freelance roles within the sports event industry. This led to a busy 2023 working on events such as London Marathon Running Show, Wimbledon, and the UCI World Cycling Championships.

After this busy summer of sport, I was then able apply my sport management skills into the wider event world whereby my most recent role was working at the Red Sea International Film Festival as Venue Operations Manager. This incorporate several practices I had learned during my university studies such as emotional intelligence, interpersonal skills and the ability to lead in a fast paced environment.

Learn more about MSc International Sport Management at Cardiff Met