Partnerships Executive (Sports u0026 Culture)

Location: London

Department: Global Partnerships

Reports to: Assoc Director, Global Partnerships

About The Role

We are looking for a commercially minded Sports & Culture Partnerships Executive to join our growing Global Partnerships & Business Development team. This role will support the development, activation, and optimisation of high-impact partnerships across esports, sports, gaming, entertainment, and broader culture. The ideal candidate will have genuine, hands-on experience in esports and a strong understanding of how brands show up credibly within fan communities. You will help manage the day-to-day execution of partnership campaigns, working across internal teams and external partners to deliver activations that drive measurable business impact. This includes fan engagement, content, CRM, performance media, influencer activity, live events, and partner reporting. This is a role for someone equally comfortable speaking the language of esports communities, managing campaign workstreams, analysing performance data, and building trusted relationships with partners.

What You’ll Do

• Partner & Stakeholder Management
  • Serve as a key day-to-day contact for selected sports, esports, gaming, and culture partners.
  • Build strong working relationships with partners through proactive communication, commercial awareness, and reliable execution.
  • Support senior team members in managing partner relationships, renewals, upsell opportunities, and new business conversations.
  • Coordinate internal stakeholders across Brand, Creative, Performance Marketing, CRM, Product, Data, Legal, Finance, and Events to ensure partnership commitments are delivered effectively.
  • Prepare partner meeting agendas, follow-ups, status updates, performance summaries, and action trackers.
  • Represent the company professionally at partner meetings, live events, tournaments, activations, and industry moments as required.
• Partnership Activation & Campaign Delivery
  • Support the planning, execution, and optimisation of partnership activations across esports, sports, gaming, entertainment, and culture.
  • Manage campaign workstreams from brief through launch, optimisation, reporting, and post-campaign review.
  • Help bring fan engagement ideas to life across digital, social, community, influencer, experiential, content, CRM, and performance media channels.
  • Ensure all partnership activity is aligned with partner objectives, internal commercial targets, brand guidelines, and contractual obligations.
  • Coordinate creative assets, partner approvals, campaign timelines, media plans, event requirements, and reporting deliverables.
  • Work with internal creative and production teams, as well as external agencies where relevant, to deliver high-quality campaign output.
  • Identify opportunities to improve campaign performance, fan engagement, and partner value throughout each partnership's lifecycle.
• Esports, Gaming & Culture Expertise
  • Bring credible knowledge of the esports and gaming ecosystem, including teams, leagues, publishers, tournaments, creators, platforms, communities, and fan behaviours.
  • Help the business understand how to activate authentically within esports and gaming communities.
  • Monitor relevant trends across esports, gaming, sports, social media, creators, fan culture, and youth entertainment.
  • Provide insight into which properties, formats, communities, and activations are most relevant for the brand and its commercial objectives.
  • Support partnership evaluations by assessing audience fit, brand credibility, fan engagement potential, and commercial opportunity.
• Performance Media, CRM & Fan Engagement
  • Support performance media campaigns linked to partnership activations, including paid social, programmatic, search, affiliate, creator, or partner-owned media channels.
  • Work with Performance Marketing teams to track campaign performance against agreed KPIs, including traffic, conversion, acquisition, engagement, retention, and ROI.
  • Support CRM activity across partnership touchpoints, including email, push notifications, in-app messaging, landing pages, and lifecycle campaigns.
  • Help develop audience segments, campaign briefs, test plans, copy direction, and performance reporting.
  • Use data and insight to recommend improvements to campaign targeting, creative, messaging, offers, and channel mix.
  • Maintain a test-and-learn approach across media, CRM, and fan engagement initiatives.
• Commercial Support & Reporting
  • Track partnership performance against agreed objectives, contractual commitments, budgets, and internal targets.
  • Produce clear, insight-led reporting for internal stakeholders and external partners.
  • Translate campaign data into practical recommendations that improve future activations and strengthen partner relationships.
  • Support business cases, renewal analysis, upsell proposals, and post-campaign reviews.
  • Help maintain accurate records of partnership activity, campaign assets, deliverables, deadlines, approvals, and results.
  • Contribute to developing repeatable activation playbooks and best practices across sports, esports, and culture partnerships.

What We’re Looking For

• Essential Experience
  • Proven experience working in esports in a relevant commercial, partnerships, marketing, media, agency, publisher, tournament organiser, team, league, platform, or brand-side role. This is a mandatory requirement.
  • Genuine passion for esports and gaming, with first-hand knowledge of major titles, teams, competitions, creators, platforms, fan communities, and cultural dynamics.
  • Experience supporting or delivering brand partnerships, sponsorships, activations, fan engagement campaigns, or integrated marketing campaigns.
  • Hands-on experience with performance media channels such as paid social, programmatic, search, creator media, affiliate, or partner-owned media.
  • Working knowledge of platforms such as Meta Ads Manager, Google Ads, TikTok Ads, YouTube, DV360, or equivalent media platforms.
  • CRM campaign experience, including segmentation, briefing, copy input, A/B testing, lifecycle messaging, email, push, or in-app campaigns.
  • Experience delivering digital and/or physical fan engagement activations, including social campaigns, community activations, live events, experiential moments, tournaments, content series, or creator-led campaigns.
  • Strong project management skills, with the ability to manage multiple workstreams, deadlines, stakeholders, and deliverables at the same time.
  • Strong analytical ability, with comfort interpreting campaign data and turning results into clear, actionable recommendations.
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to present clearly to internal stakeholders and external partners.
  • Strong commercial instinct, with an understanding of how partnerships create value for both the brand and the partner.
• Desirable Experience
  • Broader sports knowledge or fandom, particularly across football, Formula 1, basketball, cricket, motorsport, combat sports, or other major global sports.
  • Familiarity with sponsorship rights, sports rights, media rights, partner benefit packages, and rights-holder commercial models.
  • Experience working with creators, influencers, talent, teams, leagues, publishers, or entertainment IP.
  • Experience in a B2C subscription, digital product, app, technology, media, entertainment, or consumer brand environment.
  • Existing relationships within esports, gaming, sports, creator, agency, or brand partnership ecosystems.
  • Experience supporting international or multi-market partnership campaigns.

What Success Looks Like In the First Month

• You have built a clear understanding of the company’s sports, esports, gaming, and culture partnership strategy.
• You have established strong working relationships with internal teams and key external partners.
• You are managing core campaign workstreams, timelines, partner approvals, and reporting processes with increasing independence.
• You have developed a strong view of current partnership priorities, risks, opportunities, and performance drivers.

In the First 3 Months

• You are a reliable day-to-day lead or support lead across selected partnership activations.
• Campaigns are being delivered on time, to a high standard, and in line with partner and internal expectations.
• You are contributing practical ideas to improve fan engagement, campaign performance, and partner value.
• You are producing clear reporting that helps the business understand what is working, what is not, and what should change.
• You are helping the team make smarter decisions about esports, gaming, sports, and culture opportunities.

In the First 6 Months

• You are trusted by partners and internal stakeholders as a strong operator across partnership activation and campaign delivery.
• You have helped deliver multiple sports, esports, gaming, or culture campaigns that meet or exceed agreed KPIs.
• You have contributed meaningfully to at least one partner renewal, upsell, expansion, or new business opportunity.
• You have helped establish repeatable activation and reporting processes that improve how the team delivers partnerships.
• You are recognised internally as a credible voice on esports, gaming culture, fan engagement, and performance-led partnership activation.

Key Attributes

• Commercially minded and execution-focused.
• A genuine esports and gaming enthusiast with professional credibility in the space.
• Organised, proactive, and detail-oriented.
• Comfortable operating across creative, commercial, analytical, and operational workstreams.
• Strong communicator who can manage both partners and internal stakeholders effectively.
• Data-aware and performance-driven.
• Practical, collaborative, and comfortable working in a fast-moving environment.
• Passionate about building partnerships that are culturally credible and commercially meaningful.

Why This Role Matters

Sports, esports, gaming, and culture partnerships are a major opportunity to connect the brand with highly engaged communities, create meaningful fan experiences, and drive measurable business growth. This role will help ensure those partnerships are not just signed but effectively activated — with strong partner management, thoughtful fan engagement, disciplined execution, and clear commercial outcomes.