Lead and manage audience growth strategies across social media platforms and creator channels, focusing on creative content and P&L management. Responsibilities include developing growth goals, monitoring analytics, and team leadership.
About Us
Powered by one of the largest global newsrooms in sports media, The Athletic brings sports fans the most comprehensive stories about the teams, sports and athletes they love. The Athletic’s newsroom of 500+ full-time staff delivers in-depth coverage of hundreds of professional and college teams across more than 47 North American markets and all 20 football clubs in the English Premier League, as well as many Championship clubs.
The Athletic is looking for an entrepreneurial, data-driven, and creatively ambitious Head of Social to lead our audience expansion across social video, YouTube, podcasting, and creator-driven content. This is a senior leadership role for someone who lives at the intersection of audience and creative — someone who understands how audiences move, what makes them follow, and how to build a distinct social voice that cuts through the noise.
You'll own the audience growth strategy and targets across our social and video handles, our creator platforms, and manage a P&L tied to these channels.
You’ll partner closely with our creative leads across podcasting and social video to develop content that grows followers, drives brand awareness for The Athletic, and converts social audiences into future subscribers. You'll lead a team of growth leads and social media managers, setting the vision and holding the bar for creative excellence and performance. This is a hybrid role based in either the United States or United Kingdom.
Audience Growth Strategy
- Own and drive audience growth goals across YouTube, podcasting, and social media platforms — with clear KPIs for follower growth, reach, views, and engagement.
- Develop and execute platform-specific growth strategies that capitalize on algorithmic opportunities, cultural moments, and creator trends.
- Identify whitespace opportunities in the sports media landscape and build plans to exploit them before the competition does.
- Monitor audience analytics and platform signals to continuously refine strategy and stay ahead of shifts in social consumption behavior.
- Lead a creator strategy, identifying the talent we work with, and the ideal models for partnership that works for the talent and The Athletic.
Creative Innovation & Social Voice
- Champion a distinct, ownable off-platform voice for The Athletic — one that is authoritative, entertaining, and recognizable across platforms.
- Push creative boundaries to develop content formats that set us apart from legacy sports media and digital-native competitors.
- Partner with the Head Of Video to develop social video content strategies designed to scale audiences while reinforcing The Athletic brand.
- Partner with the Head Of Series and Specials to develop strategies to grow audiences on YouTube and podcasting channels.
- Stay obsessively current on platform trends, creator strategies, and cultural conversations to inform content ideation.
Creator & Platform Partnerships
- Build and grow The Athletic's creator ecosystem — identifying, developing, and managing relationships with external creators.
- Develop programming strategies that create pathways to The Athletic's owned platforms.
P&L & Business Ownership
- Own the P&L associated with The Athletic's social handles and creator channels — managing budgets, revenue opportunities, and ROI across platforms.
- Work with marketing, editorial, and product to develop social-to-platform conversion strategies that drive subscriber acquisition and retention.
- Report regularly to senior leadership on performance, strategy, and resource needs with clear accountability for growth targets.
Team Leadership
- Lead, mentor, and develop a team of two Growth Leads, with potential to expand into Social Media Managers as the function scales.
- Build a high-performance team culture grounded in creative ambition, analytical rigor, and a bias toward experimentation.
- Define clear roles, workflows, and success metrics across the team to drive accountability and output quality.
Requirements
- 7–12 years of experience in digital media.
- Proven track record of scaling social media audiences and YouTube channels at significant scale — ideally within sports, entertainment, or news media.
- Deep platform fluency across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, X (Twitter), and podcast platforms, with a strong understanding of how algorithms, formats, and monetization work on each.
- Experience managing or overseeing creator relationships and talent-driven social content.
- Comfort owning a P&L and making budget decisions in a growth context.
- Strong analytical skills — you use data to make decisions but also know when instinct and creative judgment matter more.
- Exceptional communicator who can align stakeholders, inspire a team, and present clearly to leadership.
- A genuine passion for sports, sports media, and the creator economy.
The annual base salary range for this role is $200,000.00 - $240,000.00 USD. The total compensation offered for this position may vary based on factors such as education, experience, skills, and location.
For roles in the U.S., dependent on your role, you may be eligible for variable pay, such as an annual bonus and restricted stock. Benefits may include medical, dental and vision benefits, Flexible Spending Accounts (F.S.A.s), a company-matching 401(k) plan, paid vacation, paid sick days, paid parental leave, tuition reimbursement and professional development programs.
For roles outside of the U.S., information on benefits will be provided during the interview process.
We are excited to learn more about you and your experience. To keep our hiring process as fair and authentic as possible, we ask that you submit your own work and not use GenAI tools to generate substantive content during the application and interview process. If you are a candidate for a technical role, we will let you know what specific tools you are permitted to use for your technical assessment.
The Athletic Media Company is an equal opportunity employer and enthusiastically encourages people from all backgrounds and experiences to apply. The Athletic will consider all applicants without regard to race, religion, color, national origin, ancestry, physical and/or mental disability, medical condition, genetic information, marital status, sex, gender, gender identity, gender expression, transgender status, age, sexual orientation, military or veteran status, or any other protected characteristic under applicable law.
Click here to review our Applicant Privacy Notice, which describes how and when The Athletic Media Company collects, uses, and shares certain personal information of job applicants and prospective employees.
Beware of fraudulent job recruiting schemes! Our recruiters use [email protected] exclusively, and our team members will use an email address with @theathletic.com domain. We do not conduct interviews via text or instant message and we do not ask candidates to download software, to purchase equipment through us, or to provide sensitive personally identifiable information, such as bank accounts or social security numbers. If you have been contacted by someone claiming to be a member of the recruiting/HR team at The Athletic but operating from a different email address about a job offer, please report it as potential job fraud to the law enforcement and to [email protected].
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