Ed Felton

Ed Felton graduated from BA Management, Leadership and Leisure in 2020 and is now setting up his own business venture in sport, Q Sport, alongside studying a master’s at the University of Liverpool.

On choosing my course at Manchester

The course looked very applied, interesting, and relevant for my interests and career goals; it was clear as my first choice throughout the application process.

Equally, Manchester, as a city, also was a place I was determined to come to.

It seemed the course had the ability to be flexible to each student's wants and had a small cohort, allowing more tailored learning.

The applied study period (ASP) element also gave us the autonomy to create a degree that best prepares us for the future by acquiring placements most relevant to our interests.

On choosing my career

I always had an interest in sports business with my background in work focussed on this area of expertise albeit I didn’t have a specific career in mind.

The course allowed me to go in any direction and didn’t close any avenues.

As I say the flexibility and choice of MLL allow you to tailor your degree accordingly.

The course catered and aligned with my future career goals in terms of content, the sport and tourism units that I chose were particularly relevant and were incredibly informative whilst being enjoyable.

The course's flexibility with units as well as assessment types really differentiated it and allowed me to make the degree most utilisable for me after graduation.

On my placement experience

The ASP periods are unlike any course of this type and really differentiate it, making MLL students much more employable with dense CV experience by graduation.

The three periods I had were all incredible and luckily two were abroad.

In my first year, I had the pleasure of working in the Netherlands at football stadiums in Utrecht and Amsterdam.

My final year placement was based in Gibraltar for a sports online betting company, leveraging my time there to write my dissertation on their customers' gambling behaviour.

My network has come on immensely and I have since been working on projects from my time with them.

On my advice to students looking to start this course

If you’re debating whether to take the course, I think MLL is fantastic and allows students a higher level of autonomy in elements of the degree than other competitor courses.

It really is a programme that, pardon the cliché, you get out what you put into it.

I thoroughly researched and networked tried to get the most appropriate ASPs throughout my three years and they really have made already a huge difference just a year after graduation, not just in my CV but confidence and self-belief moving forward.