Strategy Director, Audience Intelligence

Strategy Director, Audience Intelligence

New York

About Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment

Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment (DBSE) is the world's first firm dedicated exclusively to driving commercial investment in women's sports. We sit at the intersection of brand strategy, media investment, athlete partnerships, and proprietary measurement — advising the world's most ambitious brands, rights holders, and investors on how to win in the fastest-growing sector in sports.

We don't observe the market. We build it. From co-creating iHeart Women's Sports, to launching the Business of Women's Sports Summit, to stewarding brand strategy and investments across leagues and teams along with broker athlete and media partnerships — DBSE operates as an industry architect, not an agency-of-record.

We are now entering our next chapter: expanding our proprietary female fan intelligence into the men's sports ecosystem. This hire is central to that mission.

This role will be working out of our NY office two (2) days a week on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The Opportunity

• We are looking for a rare operator: a strategist who has spent their career building deep, rigorous knowledge of female fan audiences — and who sees that expertise as the key to unlocking the next frontier of fan engagement across all of sports and entertainment.
• As Strategy Director, Audience Intelligence, you will be the firm's leading voice on female fan behavior, motivation, and commercial value. You will build DBSE's proprietary point of view on the female fan consumer — across every sport, every platform, every purchase funnel — and then use that expertise to help brands and rights holders in men's sports understand why the female fan is their greatest untapped growth lever.
• This is not a research role. This is a revenue role. Your insights will be the foundation of client strategy, new business pitches, thought leadership, and DBSE's market positioning as the firm that knows the female fan consumer better than anyone in the marketplace.

What You'll Own

• Female Fan Intelligence & Audience Architecture
  • Build and maintain DBSE's proprietary female fan segmentation model — behavioral, psychographic, attitudinal, and transactional — across sports categories
  • Develop audience personas that translate raw data into commercial strategy: who she is, what she watches, where she spends, how she influences household and peer-group purchase decisions
  • Synthesize first-party, third-party, and syndicated data sources (Nielsen, SponsorUnited, SBJ research, Monarch, etc.) into a unified, defensible POV
  • Own our data partnership with Mondo Metrics and other relevant data partners, deepening DBSE's analytics infrastructure and measurement capabilities
  • Stay ahead of the market on female fan growth — tracking viewership trends, social behavior, media consumption, and purchase intent data in near real-time
• Men's Sports Market Expansion
  • Lead DBSE's strategic entry into men's sports through the lens of female fan audience intelligence — helping leagues, teams, and brands understand the female fan as the single most important growth audience in their ecosystem
  • Develop the client-facing thesis: why men's sports properties that invest in female fan experience, programming, and marketing unlock outsized commercial returns
  • Build new business strategy for men's sports rights holders (NFL, NBA, MLB, MLS, college athletics) and the brands that partner with them
  • Partner with our leadership team to identify acquisition targets, co-investment opportunities, and strategic alliances that accelerate DBSE's expansion into the men's sports commercial market
• Client Strategy & Brand Counsel
  • Lead audience-first strategy engagements for DBSE clients — translating fan intelligence into sponsorship, media, content, and activation recommendations
  • Serve as the firm's senior strategic voice in client presentations, new business pitches, and partnership discussions
  • Collaborate with the strategy, partnerships, and measurement teams to ensure strategy is integrated across all client deliverables
  • Develop investment-grade audience briefs, trend reports, and custom segmentation analysis for brand clients making sports marketing allocation decisions
• Thought Leadership & Market Positioning
  • Contribute to DBSE's external voice — writing, speaking, and media appearances that reinforce the firm's authority on female fan intelligence
  • Support The Business of Women's Sports Summit (BOWS) and other DBSE platforms with data-driven editorial and programming
  • Partner with leadership on the development of original research, white papers, and public datasets that establish DBSE as the definitive source on female sports audiences
  • Identify and build relationships with sports media, trade press, and industry organizations to amplify DBSE's research and POV

Who You Are

• You are a strategist, not just an analyst. You know how to turn audience data into a commercial argument — and you know how to deliver that argument in a boardroom, a pitch deck, and a keynote.
• You have built segmentation models, not just read them. You understand the difference between a demographic and a psychographic, and you know why that distinction is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorship value.
• You are obsessed with the female sports fan — not as a niche audience, not as a cause, but as an investment thesis. You have the receipts to prove it: data, case studies, and client wins that show brands how to find her, reach her, and keep her.

Required Experience & Qualifications

• 8+ years of experience in sports marketing strategy, audience intelligence, consumer insights, or related field — with meaningful exposure to both women's sports and men's sports ecosystems
• Proven expertise in audience segmentation methodology: behavioral, psychographic, attitudinal, and/or predictive modeling
• Deep familiarity with sports marketing data infrastructure — Nielsen Sports, SponsorUnited, SBJ research, YouGov Sports, or equivalent
• Track record of developing client-facing strategy that has directly influenced sponsorship investment, media allocation, or brand activation decisions
• Experience working with or advising brands, leagues, teams, or agencies on female fan engagement strategies — with demonstrated commercial outcomes
• Exceptional written and verbal communication skills; ability to translate complex data into clear, compelling narratives for C-suite audiences
• Experience in a client-service or consulting environment (agency, consultancy, or in-house strategy function with external stakeholder management)
• Bachelor's degree required; advanced degree in marketing, business, analytics, or sports management a plus

Preferred Qualifications

• Experience working directly with men's professional sports properties (leagues, teams, media rights holders) on fan development or sponsorship strategy
• Existing relationships within sports media, brand marketing leadership, or league/team front offices
• Familiarity with brand lift measurement, sponsorship valuation, and media ROI frameworks
• Experience supporting or building thought leadership content: white papers, original research, industry presentations
• Prior experience at a sports-focused consultancy, media company, sponsorship analytics firm, or women's sports-centric organization

The anticipated annual salary range for this position is $175,000 - $200,000 Salary is determined based on a wide range of factors, including relevant experience, knowledge, skills, job duties, and geographic location. For this role, we also offer programs such as medical/dental/vision insurance, 401(k) matching, paid time off, and various other benefits and perks.

Why Deep Blue

• We are building the infrastructure for the next commercial era in sports media and marketing — and the female fan is the center of that infrastructure. This is a chance to do strategy work that actually moves markets: not advising from the outside, but building the thesis, the data, and the client relationships that shift how brands invest in sports.
• You will work directly with our founder and leadership team on the highest-stakes client engagements and market expansion decisions.
• This is a senior role with significant autonomy and the opportunity to build a practice that did not exist before DBSE.

Deep Blue Sports + Entertainment is an equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building a team that reflects the audiences we serve. Interested candidates should submit a resume and a brief note on their female fan strategy POV to View email address on click.appcast.io