Sports Partnerships Manager

Established in 1981 with a single store in the Northwest of England, the JD Group is a leading omni-channel retailer of Sports Fashion, Outdoors and Gyms with our colleagues working in stores across several retail fascias in many markets around the world.

JD Sports Fashion Plc was listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1996 and has been a FTSE100 publicly quoted company since 2019 and continues to grow in the UK and internationally.

We want to be the leading global omnichannel retailer in the sports and outdoor industry. To be a part of this successful company and help us to achieve this you will have the desire to ingrain our strategic goals of being a people-led, innovative and customer-focused organisation which provides operational excellence whilst identifying new areas of growth as part of our day to day objectives.

Role Overview

The purpose of this role is to work with Head of Partnerships & Sponsorship as well as key stakeholders, internally & externally, to maximise JD’s Sports sponsorships agreements. This will include ownership of the activation calendars & executing plans around key activity across multi-channel, marketing & partner channels as well as assisting in prospecting new partnerships.

The role will involve liaising with the JD studio, partners, content providers & the full marketing team to maximise activity across both JD/sponsor platforms and ensuring all marketing rights around the agreements are augmented across all platforms.

Produce accurate reports of all sponsorship activity & circulate relevant updates to ensure all relevant stakeholders within the marketing teams are aware of the activity to achieve maximum reach & impact.

Key Duties/Responsibilities

• Ownership of the planned calendar of activity to maximise all Sports Sponsorships with a particular focus on football & UFC.
• Continuously develop and refine partnership activation strategies through constant reviewing of our partnerships’ impact.
• Regular liaison with partners to identify key stories & opportunities to create activity that will help raise the profile of our partnerships.
• Ensure relevant content is being produced for use on JD platforms, JD social media & all sponsor platforms with product relevance where possible.
• Work collaboratively across internal departments and stakeholders for partner approvals and alignment of programmes and initiatives.
• Work with the JD Marketing teams including activations, social, retail marketing & influencer/talent Teams on developing activity & integrated strategies that further promote sports/football activity in JD with the sponsor.
• Work with retail & the JD Marketing Team to identify opportunities for events & activations instore with a focus on local community engagement.
• Work with the relevant parties, including buying & merchandising, to assist in relevant product being seeded to the sponsored asset where relevant.
• Assist in activating photoshoots & relevant campaign imagery for sponsored assets alongside the creative team.
• Work with the wider multi-channel team to ensure awareness of all other JD/sport activity is pushed through key channels & any opportunities for sponsored assets to assist in other campaigns are identified.
• Carry out strategies and campaign ideas that will help improve association & sales potentials through the use of our partnerships.
• Liaise with the buying & merchandising teams to ensure our Football Retail Partnerships activity is fully supporting the required sales plans.
• Work with SEO & Outreach teams, plus PR agencies where relevant, to execute opportunities for press coverage/access of our sponsored assets.
• Report back on all sponsorship activity and competitions to show the benefits and coverage obtained including commercial results where relevant.
• Continually monitor relevant competitors and inspiration sources to report to the wider team.

Skills/Experience/Knowledge Needed

• Full & Clean Driving License
• Excellent knowledge of boxing & football is key.
• Experience of planning & activating Sports Marketing agreements;
• Wider sporting knowledge of other sports is also advantageous.
• Strong presentation skills & attention to detail.
• Excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Ability to work as part of a growing team in a fast moving environment.
• A willingness to learn new skills.
• A willingness to work out of hours and travel where necessary.
• Prior experience of working in Sports Marketing or Sports Marketing agencies is preferred but not essential.

We know our colleagues work tirelessly to make JD Sports the success it is today and in turn, we offer them some amazing benefits including staff Discount On JD Group and other brands within the organisation and personal development opportunities to learn and develop at work.

Thank you for your time

#JD

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