Manager, Sports Marketing

Responsibilities

• Partner with the Sr. Manager to negotiate, renew, and manage GEICO's partnerships, working alongside Legal, Procurement, and agencies
• Evaluate proposals and renewal terms with rigor — asset valuation, pricing benchmarks, exclusivity and category definitions, renewal and matching rights, and rights gaps — and, with the Sr. Manager, bring clear recommendations and tradeoffs to senior leaders
• Help build the business case for each partnership: what we are buying, what it is worth, and how it ties to brand and business objectives
• Manage day-to-day relationships with league and team partners and partner with the Sr. Manager on executive-level relationships, setting a regular business review cadence and holding partners accountable for contractual deliverables
• Make sure league-level and team-level rights (national and local, media, in-venue, and digital) work together as a coherent portfolio
• Own activation strategy, translating sponsorship rights and assets into plans aligned to brand and business objectives, including local market priorities
• Ensure partnership assets are fully utilized — tracking inventory, deliverables, and fulfillment against contract
• Identify new activation opportunities within existing rights, and flag assets that are not earning their keep
• Lead cross-functional sports planning across Social, Influencer, Creative, Analytics, and Media— managing timelines, approvals, deliverables, and dependencies
• Partner with internal creative teams and external agencies to brief, develop, and deliver activation assets that meet program needs and brand standards

Requirements

• Experience: 8+ years in sports marketing, sponsorships, or partnership marketing, including direct experience negotiating and managing sponsorship agreements and leading cross-functional activations from planning through recap.
• Negotiation and deal evaluation: Demonstrated experience negotiating or renewing sponsorship agreements, including asset valuation, pricing, exclusivity, and category protections, and working alongside Legal and Procurement.
• Sports sponsorship fluency: Deep familiarity with the baseball and hockey landscape, including league versus team partnership structures, local market rights, and how properties package media, in-venue, and digital inventory.
• Service company context: Experience working inside a conversion-driven service business — financial services, insurance, SaaS, or banking — where marketing is tied directly to customer acquisition and retention.
• Partner relationships: Experience managing senior-level relationships with properties, agencies, and vendors while driving execution across internal teams.
• Cross-functional leadership: Demonstrated ability to lead multiple concurrent initiatives with high organization, precision, and follow-through in a matrixed environment.
• People leadership: Experience managing, coaching, and developing team members, with a track record of setting a high bar and growing talent.
• Analytical and financial acumen: Experience managing budgets and using measurement and learnings to evaluate performance and inform renewal and investment decisions.
• Communication: Strong written and verbal communication skills, including executive-ready memos and presentations.
• Education: Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, sports management, communications, or a related field preferred.

Preferred

• Experience on the league, team, or agency side of the business, giving you a view into how partners think about pricing and deal structure
• Direct relationships with MLB, NHL, or club partnership teams, or with agencies in the sports marketing ecosystem
• Experience with local market partnership strategy, including local media and broadcast rights
• Experience managing activations tied to experiential or live events
• Experience building or scaling a team, including defining roles, hiring, and onboarding
• AI tools: Comfort using AI tools like Claude or Copilot to speed up analysis, drafting, and workflow
• Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, sports management, communications, or a related field preferred