Responsibilities

• Provide senior leadership in the day-to-day management of collegiate partnerships, with a focus on NCAA, conferences, universities, athletic departments, NIL initiatives, and campus engagement platforms.
• Develop and lead comprehensive partnership strategies, identifying, communicating, and maximizing sponsorship assets to deliver measurable value for clients and successfully secure stakeholder buy-in.
• Leverage established relationships across the collegiate athletics ecosystem, including universities, conferences, multimedia rights holders, agencies, and governing bodies.
• Lead negotiations for sponsorship agreements, marketing rights, naming rights, and partnership renewals, demonstrating a proven history of delivering successful commercial outcomes.
• Direct management of collegiate sponsorship portfolios, serving as the primary point of contact for university partners, conference leadership, rights holders, clients, and agency partners at the executive level.
• Own and manage senior client relationships, serving as a trusted strategic advisor throughout the partnership lifecycle.
• Lead cross-functional planning and execution of integrated sponsorship campaigns, campus activations, hospitality programs, student engagement initiatives, and experiential marketing efforts.
• Partner with Data & Analytics teams to establish partnership KPIs, measurement frameworks, ROI reporting, and optimization strategies.
• Collaborate with Creative, Experiential, Social, PR, Digital, and Insights teams to ensure all partnership objectives are achieved.
• Identify new collegiate sponsorship opportunities across athletics, campus life, NIL, women7;s sports, esports, and emerging properties that align with client objectives.

Requirements

• Bachelors Degree preferably in Marketing, Communications, Business or similar discipline.
• 8–10+ years of experience in sports marketing, sponsorship consulting, brand partnerships, collegiate athletics, media rights, or a related agency, property, conference, or brand environment.
• Extensive experience developing and managing college sponsorship programs across NCAA institutions, conferences, athletic departments, or collegiate media rights organizations.
• Demonstrated experience managing bowl game entitlement sponsorships, including strategic planning, contract negotiation, rights management, activation execution, stakeholder coordination, hospitality, and partner fulfillment.
• Established relationships throughout the collegiate sports landscape, including universities, conferences, athletic administrators, multimedia rights holders, and industry partners.
• Proven ability to develop partnership strategies that drive client investment and long-term commercial success.
• Demonstrated experience negotiating complex sponsorship agreements and managing partnerships from contract execution through activation and renewal.
• Exceptional client service and relationship management skills across clients, partners, internal stakeholders, and external agencies.
• Experience leading, mentoring, and developing high-performing teams.
• Strong understanding of collegiate athletics, NCAA regulations, NIL opportunities, student-athlete marketing, and the evolving college sports landscape.

Preferred

• Agency experience highly preferred
• Experience in tech/AI, a plus