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The Athletic · 1 day ago

Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager (New York)

United States

Full-time

Remote

Mid, Senior Level

$90K/yr - $100K/yr

5+ years exp

The Athletic Media Company is a leading sports media organization that provides comprehensive coverage of sports teams and athletes. They are seeking a Senior Strategic Partnerships Manager to oversee partner management and business operations, ensuring effective collaboration across various teams to drive revenue through strategic partnerships.

JournalismNewsSports

Culture & Values

Responsibilities

Manage the day to day relationships with The Athletic’s sports league partners

Own operational execution of league partnerships, with a focus on video, highlights, and emerging content formats

Build trusted, long-term partnership relationships through clear communication, strategic planning, and proactive problem-solving

Lead regular partner check-ins, performance reviews, and recaps

Translate league agreements and content rights into clear internal guidelines for video, editorial, social, and product teams

Partner closely with Legal to ensure compliance with league rules, usage rights, approvals, embargoes, and attribution requirements

Internally advocate for league partners to ensure contractual obligations and brand standards are met

Monitor and evaluate partnership success against agreed KPIs

Develop strong partner relationships, through effectively communicating complex ideas and strategies, leading meetings, crafting partner correspondence, driving campaign production and evaluating partnership success

Identify process improvements to scale partnership operations efficiently

Collaborate with the broader Business Development team, Strategy and Planning teams to identify new opportunities to expand league partnerships and unlock incremental revenue

Serve as the primary point of contact between internal cross-functional teams including legal, finance, product, editorial, design and marketing to ensure all deliverables are on message, on track, and within scope

Build and maintain project delivery trackers and create proof of delivery documents/recaps

Qualification

Partner managementBusiness developmentMedia rightsAdvertising productionProject managementCommunication skillsOrganizational skillsCreative thinkingStrategic thinking

Required

BA/BS degree with 5-7 years of relevant business development and partnership management experience

Experience in working with professional sports leagues, teams, and properties is a must

Strong understanding of media rights, content licensing, and video/highlights workflows

Strong understanding of news and the journalistic process

Experience in managing large-scale, multi-vertical partnerships

Proficiency in developing project plans, process maps, and project tracking

Experience managing advertising production workflows and teams while also direct client exposure

High level of professionalism; driven and motivated with excellent follow-up

Outstanding interpersonal and communication skills (both written and verbal)

Extremely organized

Creative and strategic thinking skills

Ability to multitask and meet deadlines in a fast-paced environment with colleagues based in New York, San Francisco, around North America, and internationally

Represent The Athletic brand well