Manager, Commercial Planning (New York, New York)

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.

About the Role

The Athletic is looking for a Manager of Commercial Planning to serve as the primary architect and steward of our most complex and high-value commercial initiatives and partnerships. This is a high-visibility role that sits at the intersection of business development, strategy, deal-making, and operational rigor; it is a hybrid role based in New York City, reporting into a Vice President of Advertising Finance.

We are looking for a "dual-threat" professional: someone who has a deep reverence for analytical rigor, paired with a commercially-minded approach that helps guide projects and deals to success. You will be the quantitative engine driving our commercial strategy; not just evaluating ideas before launch and deals before they are signed; but rigorously tracking performance once they are live.


Responsibilities

• Commercial planning and analysis: You will translate dense financial data and analysis into high-impact visual narratives for discussions with The Athletic's leadership team. You'll articulate the "why" behind every major investment.
• Modeling and evaluation: Build clean, flexible financial models to value complex and integrated deals and commercial initiatives across licensing and advertising, as well as other revenue streams.
• Deal construction: Analyze and aid in negotiation of deal mechanics, focusing on minimum guarantees (MGs), revenue shares, and recoupment schedules. You will partner closely with Legal and Accounting to ensure term sheets translate into sound financial realities.
• Post-close performance tracking: Own the "full-lifecycle" of the deal. Once a partnership is live, you are on the hook for tracking actuals vs. benchmarks, managing P&L impact, and providing the FP&A oversight needed to course-correct or double-down.
• Forecasting and variance analysis: Integrate live deal performance into our broader rolling forecasts, explaining variances to leadership and identifying trends in audience monetization and rights costs.

Requirements

• 5+ years of experience in corporate development, strategic finance, consulting or investment banking.
• Analytically rigorous individual with experience performing high stakes evaluation of potential deals, ideally including content licensing.
• Deep understanding of the leverage points in a negotiation; can anticipate how a legal clause might impact a financial outcome.
• Someone who understands the value of accuracy; whether it's a pre-deal valuation or a post-deal performance report, you own the numbers from start to finish.
• Genuinely motivated by The Athletic's mission; you understand the value of premium sports journalism and the gravity of the shifting media landscape.
• Expert-level financial modeling.
• Strong executive presentation development skills.
• Deep understanding of commercial deal terms, negotiations, and deal processes.
• Experience with key FP&A processes (budgeting, forecasting, and variance analysis).
• BS in Finance/Economics, MBA a plus.

The annual base salary range for this role is $130,000.00 USD - $140,000.00 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.

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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].