ATP Tour

How Edmund found new 'buzz' through ATP x LALIGA MBA

Kyle Edmund spent two decades building his life around tennis. Now, less than a year after retiring, the former No. 14 player in the PIF ATP Rankings is learning what life looks like beyond it.

The Briton is part of the inaugural ATP x LALIGA MBA in Sports Management cohort, a programme designed to help current and former athletes transition into leadership roles across sport. For Edmund, the experience has become part education, part self-discovery and part search for what comes next after moving on from the daily structure of professional tennis.

“I retired in August of last year and it took me a couple of months to just get my head around it,” Edmund recalled to ATPTour.com. “It was more of an emotional thing to leave something I've done for 20 years. When I stopped playing, one of my worries was ‘Where was the buzz going to come from?’ I wasn't sure.

“It's definitely exciting because new challenges excite people and it's a fresh start. But at the same time, it's also a bit of the unknown. I don't know what the future holds, but I knew I couldn't sit around and wait for things. I had to go out there and make things happen.”

The MBA builds on the ATP’s partnership with LALIGA, which began in 2023 through the ATP Business Education Programme, expanding opportunities for players to explore the business side of sport and life after competition.

After finishing his professional career — during which he won ATP Tour titles in Antwerp and New York, and made the semi-finals of the Australian Open in 2018 — Edmund spent months meeting people, asking questions and exposing himself to unfamiliar environments. Some opportunities intrigued him more than others, but sport kept pulling him back.

The Briton had always followed other sports obsessively, from football and Formula One to rugby and golf, fascinated not only by the athletes themselves, but by the mechanics behind major sporting organisations and events. That curiosity gradually evolved into an interest in the sports business world and eventually led him toward the ATP x LALIGA MBA, which combined online learning with in-person sessions and was tailored specifically for elite athletes navigating life after competition.

The programme itself is structured around three nine-day concentrations, allowing athletes to continue balancing existing professional and personal commitments while immersing themselves in the course. Much of the learning focused on practical application, with case studies, industry speakers and direct exposure to how major sports organisations and events operate behind the scenes.

“The programme that we're doing with the MBA is great because it gives you a sense of purpose, which when you retire and maybe you don't have anything in place, you lose that purpose, you lose that routine,” Edmund said.

“Having a goal, whether it be wanting to be a successful tournament director or anything else, you get the ball rolling. You're moving forward, you're always learning. I felt that was really helpful for me rather than feeling that I don't know where to start. But just by having that goal, it made things and opportunities open up.”

Edmund has already started exploring tournament director roles, broadcasting and speaking engagements focused on high performance and leadership. The 31-year-old will work at events in Nottingham and Roehampton while he continues learning the operational side of tennis.

The classroom side of the MBA represented another adjustment entirely. Edmund left traditional education early to focus on his tennis career and admitted he initially felt apprehensive about returning to that environment after so many years away. But once integrated into the programme, the practical nature of the course quickly resonated.

“Everyone's sharing the same thoughts and feelings about what they're going to do, what they're looking for,” Edmund said of the programme. “Things are unknown, we don't know everything. So we're all in the same camp of wanting to learn. When you're inside a classroom where you spend a lot of time with them and you're no longer athletes, you're opening up a lot more.

“I really feel honoured that I'm part of the first cohort to do this programme and hopefully it can just keep on improving. ATP and La Liga are always very aware of asking for feedback and wanting to know how to improve it for the future.”

Looking back now, Edmund admits there are elements of retirement he wishes he had considered earlier in his playing career.

“When I played, I had no interest in looking ahead, and I would totally get it and understand that players don't do that, because when you're in the moment, tennis is all you care about,” Edmund said. “To get to the top, you have to commit almost all your time to doing that. You always have a little bit of an obsession with it and a commitment and a desire. So I totally get it.

“But now that I'm on the other side, there are certain elements where I wish I did slightly prepare for the future. When the curtain gets pulled, unless you've got something in place and lined up, it can be a little bit of a struggle or a little bit of a lonely time because you feel like you're starting from scratch again in the new phase of your career.”

For now, Edmund remains in the early stages of that next phase. He is still exploring, still learning and still building the foundations of a life after tennis.

In addition to Edmund, the other members of the inaugural ATP x LALIGA MBA in Sports Management cohort were Pablo Andujar, George Bastl, Ignacio Benzal Alia, Ricardas Berankis, Rohan Bopanna, Rogerio Dutra Silva, Ernests Gulbis, Benjamin Hannestad, Adrian Menendez-Maceiras, Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi, Aldin Setkic and Joao Sousa.