Qualifications: Sports Journalism, Journalism, Media Studies, English Literature, Sports Marketing, NCTJ
Location: Worldwide
Salary: 10K-100K
Oh, the joys of being Henry Winter. A job with The Daily Telegraph as football correspondent, opportunities to travel the world and paid slots to talk about football games watched by millions. Fancy this lifestyle? Prepare to work your socks off.
Any job related in sports journalism will entail long hours, a more-than-often low starting salary and often the dreaded requirement of having to work weekends. Team that with the added pressure of meeting deadlines and many wannabe journalists give up before they have even properly begun.
To be in with a chance of working in this field, early preparation and signs that you can commit are key. Start a blog. Showing that you can write regularly will highlight both your sports terminology and ability to commit to a writing schedule. Next time you’re watching the football, turn off the commentary and see if you can write a match report within five minutes of the final whistle. Cover live matches by researching opportunities with magazines, newspapers and websites. Do not underestimate the potential of Twitter and networking; a polite request to a well-known sports correspondent could land you with your dream placement.
The privileges of working as a sports correspondent are endless. Ultimately, you are getting paid for a job that more than likely feels like a hobby. You may even get the chance to interview a sporting hero. You can never predict today’s news, so working in such a field is unlikely to get boring.
The most important thing to remember is that journalism is competitive. Stand out from the crowd by taking advantage of every opportunity that you can. You should never be short of real life examples in a cover letter or interview that highlight your abilities to be a sports correspondent.
