Manager, Sports Brand Solutions

The Sports Brand Solutions groups serve the Disney Advertising Sales team as experts on specific sports/properties (i.e. College Football, NBA, NFL, Women’s Sports). The group is vital to the sales process and drives significant advertising revenue via the creation of multimedia sponsorship opportunities and turnkey, customized marketing solutions.   The Sports Brand Solutions group oversees the development and execution of all sponsorship deliverables, to ensure sponsorship elements and enhancements run correctly. The group works closely with internal stakeholders including Sales, Production, Programming, Editorial, Revenue & Operations, Consumer Marketing and Legal in order to strategically maximize the revenue and sales opportunities across our sport platforms.

The Sports Brand Solutions group is a team of experts that provide creative marketing sponsorship and integration opportunities across ESPN’s vast content portfolio. The team is responsible for the complete sponsorship process including, but not limited to, rights negotiations, strategy, ideation, and execution. The SBS team also manages the day-to-day external sales relationships with our various League and 3rd party production partners to ensure we are following the contractual guardrails and maximizing revenue opportunities.

Job Summary:

The Manager, Sports Brand Solutions will be tasked with supporting Disney Ad Sales in their effort to drive revenue against College Sports and specifically College Football. Responsibilities include, but are not limited to –

• Develop multimedia sponsorship packages for CFB properties across TV, Digital, Social, Streaming and On-Site activation platforms

• Serve as Ad Sales liaison to Production/Content

• Serve as a point person aggregating intel, managing timelines, and ultimately delivering completed opportunities to sales/clients

• Assist respective Director and Senior Manager with their efforts to drive sponsorship opportunities across TV, digital, social & streaming platforms for CFB, including servicing Official Sponsors across the College Football Playoff and College GameDay

• Acts as first line of defense to Coordinator

• Grow and develop relationships with content, programming and league partners

• Collaborate directly with content partners on sponsor opportunities and positions

• Manages all aspects of the on-air feature enhancement process and implementation process

• Manage the creation of sponsorship related graphics and similar assets from start to finish, in partnership with colleagues in Sports Brand Solutions and Creative Services.

• Assist in creation and distribution of linear and addressable sales obligations

• Maintains current awareness of competitive sponsorship marketplace

• Researches and creates customized added value opportunities to maximize advertising sales revenue

• Provides recommendations on deal point letters on front end of negotiation

• Participates with Management in understanding more complex issues and resolutions

• Attend client meetings and participate on client calls, as needed

Responsibilities and Duties of the Role:

• Build multimedia sponsorship opportunities and manage execution of cross-platform deals

• Research and respond to RFP’s

• Obligations, proactive pitch materials, pricing requests, competitive reviews, etc.

• Coordination with Production, Digital Content, Programming, CreativeWorks, etc.

Required Qualifications & Skills:

• 5+ years related work experience

• Experience in digital media sales preferred

• Experience in sports marketing, sales, or partnerships preferred

• Must be able to thrive in a fast-paced environment that requires a high level of responsiveness

• Proficient with Outlook, PowerPoint, Keynote, Word, and Excel

• Excellent written, verbal and listening communication skills

• An optimistic, solution oriented, team player who leads by example

Preferred Qualifications & Skills:

• Thorough understanding of College Sports and College Football landscape

• Detail oriented and strong time management skills

• High level of creativity

• Strong written and presentation skills

• High level of customer service

• Self-starter with ability to work independently, while being accountable to team

• Flexibility to travel during week and weekends.  Work is primarily in an office environment, with occasional event travel.

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