Account Director, Earned Media Strategy – Sports
New York, New York, United States
Published
10/01/2025
Account Director, Earned Media Strategy – Sports
About the Opportunity:
The Weber Shandwick team (as part of The Weber Shandwick Collective) is seeking an Account Director, Earned Media Strategy with exceptional earned strategy, media relations prowess, and a specialized focus and passion for sports, including football and MMA. This opportunity offers you the chance to work on high-profile clients across CPG, Retail, Food & Beverage, helping them earn meaningful attention across culture.
About You:
You breathe earned media, live for a great pitch, and have a robust network of relationships within top tier business, broadcast, sports lifestyle, food & beverage and entertainment. You move seamlessly between traditional media and emerging platforms like Substack, podcasts, and content creators. Fluent in sports and internet culture and always ahead of the trends, you know what’s buzzy, what’s next, and how to help brands break through.
You’re a strategic thinker who thrives in fast-paced environments and knows how to manage multi-faceted, integrated campaigns without missing a beat. You bring structure to chaos, all while juggling deadlines, media moments, and client needs with calm confidence. You’re immersed in sports, pop culture and entertainment and know how to turn cultural insight into earned impact. A creative storyteller and collaborative partner, you bring curiosity, originality, and hustle to everything you do. Ready to make waves with a team of leading earned strategists? Let’s talk.
Responsibilities:
- Build and nurture strong relationships with top-tier sports media, including football journalists, national and local broadcasters, correspondents, and key influencers within sports culture, while seamlessly extending this network to encompass business, lifestyle, food & beverage, and entertainment media verticals.
- Maintain a strong understanding of the media and cultural landscape, as well as emerging issues that may impact clients directly or indirectly. Approaches client work with curiosity — always seeking to understand the brand, its competitors, and the broader industry context
- Proactively and reactively crafts compelling, newsworthy stories that drive earned coverage
- Lead the development and execution of earned and integrated media programs from start to finish
- Develop strategic earned plans and write high-quality media materials, including pitches, press releases, and messaging documents
- Deliver consistently high-caliber work with a client-first mindset and sharp attention to detail
- Counsel and interact effectively with clients and leaders at client organizations
- Collaborates effectively with agency and inter-agency partners, serving as a key contributor across teams to drive alignment and deliver cohesive, large-scale campaign work
- Mentors and develops junior team members through hands-on guidance, feedback, and professional development
- Cultivates and participates in new business opportunities and pitches
Competencies:
- Business Acumen– align talent strategies to drive business goals
- Client Service– client focus and ability to build trust and rapport across all levels
- Proactivity – exhibit relentless pursuit for new and innovative talent strategies
- Collaboration– build strong relationships at all levels across the organization
- Critical Thinking– ask probing questions; anticipate and address critical talent gaps and needs
- Conflict Resolution– possess sound judgment and savvy in navigating and resolving complex talent and organizational issues
Basic Qualifications:
- 6-8 years of experience.
- Experience leading projects from start to finish, working with integrated teams across various disciplines.
- Earned strategy and media relations experience
- Bachelor’s degree
The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- 401k (with employer match)
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
- MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
- Short-Term Disability
- Paid Employee Family Leave
- Family Building Benefit
This is a hybrid role tied to our New York office.
NYC Salary range: $100,000 – $130,000
Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; market considerations; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee’s/applicant’s background, pertinent experience, and qualifications.
Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.
#LI-SK1
We make our careers website accessible to any and all users. If you need an accommodation to participate in the application process, please contact us at JobAppAccommodation@ipgdxtra.com. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or vendors; rather it is strictly for applicants who require special assistance accessing our employment website. Due to volume, messages sent to this email address that are not related to an accommodation cannot be answered.
New York, New York, United States
Senior Manager, Earned Media - Sports
Weber Shandwick is seeking a Senior Manager to join our Integrated Media team within our New York Consumer Practice.
We Are Seeking
We are seeking a strong Senior Manager to join our Earned Media team within our Consumer Practice. You love the thrill of the pitch, building relationships with media, and constantly immersing yourself in pop culture, trends, and the world of sports. As a Senior Manager, you will have the opportunity to work on top-tier brands across a variety of consumer categories, with a focus on bringing stories to life at the intersection of culture, lifestyle, and sports.
What You Will Be Doing
- Develop a strong understanding of the client’s business and target audience, and work with strategists and creative team members to deliver innovative and integrated programs that earn attention
- Generate story ideas and topic angles, draft media materials, and pitch media to land earned coverage
- Monitor media outlets, understand industry issues that directly and indirectly affect the client, and analyze and distill meaningful insights from media coverage
- Support executive visibility efforts for clients including identifying, pitching and securing interviews and speaking engagements for C-suite
- Develop strategic messaging for clients and support the creation of media plans and proposals that take an integrated approach to driving awareness with target audiences
- Provide thoughtful recommendations for content creation and distribution across multiple channels to support paid, owned and earned channels
- Oversee client activations and programs including cultural/sporting events (e.g. Super Bowl, World Cup, Olympics, etc.)
- Counsel, coach and develop junior staff
- Lead logistics planning for media and other influencer events
- Support the development of KPIs to maximize media relations impact
- Highlight results, measuring success and promoting wins and key learnings to client
Competencies
- Business Acumen– align talent strategies to drive business goals
- Client Service– client focus and ability to build trust and rapport across all levels
- Proactivity – exhibit relentless pursuit for new and innovative talent strategies
- Collaboration– build strong relationships at all levels across the organization
- Critical Thinking– ask probing questions; anticipate and address critical talent gaps and needs
- Conflict Resolution– possess sound judgment and savvy in navigating and resolving complex talent and organizational issues
Basic Qualifications
- Public relations experience of approximately 5-7 years, agency or in-house
- Experience and/or passion for pop culture and sports
- Fluency in media relations
- Strong existing media and influencer relationships
- Ability to develop new media and influencer relations and turn those relationships into coverage
- Working knowledge of and comfort executing new media forms (e.g. podcasts, Substack, etc.)
- Drafting media materials, including pitches and press releases
- Optimizing programs in real-time to maximize success based on preliminary results
- Amplification of strategies, including paid, owned and earned
- Ability to plan, organize, monitor and control projects and programs, ensuring efficient utilization of technical and creative resources
- Ability to counsel clients on media relations activities and present plans in a convincing manner
- Ability to work effectively with integrated agency teams and diverse range of internal stakeholders
- Strong team leadership abilities
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in English
- Strong negotiation, presentation, collaboration and problem-solving skills
The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- 401k (with employer match)
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
- MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
- Short-Term Disability
- Paid Employee Family Leave
- Family Building Benefit
This is a hybrid role tied to our New York office.
NYC Salary range: $85,000 – $100,000
Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; market considerations; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee’s/applicant’s background, pertinent experience, and qualifications.
Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.
#LI-SK1
We make our careers website accessible to any and all users. If you need an accommodation to participate in the application process, please contact us at JobAppAccommodation@ipgdxtra.com. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or vendors; rather it is strictly for applicants who require special assistance accessing our employment website. Due to volume, messages sent to this email address that are not related to an accommodation cannot be answered.
New York, New York, United States
Senior Vice President, Earned Media Strategy
About the Opportunity
The Weber Shandwick team is seeking a Senior Vice President of Earned Media Strategy with exceptional earned strategy and media relations prowess to support several corporate clients in our Healthcare Practice. The ideal candidate will have experience working across sectors in healthcare and brand reputation building communications, executive visibility, and earned media strategy.
About you: Are you someone who knows the modern media landscape and has a unique experience telling stories for healthcare brands? Do you love the thrill of the pitch and building relationships with media? Then read on! We are looking for a highly collaborative, original thinker who is endlessly curious about the intersections of people, culture, brands, and media. We want someone who is able to frame a problem, develop succinct insights, and explain what it all means in a compelling story. Come grow your career as part of our leading community of earned media strategists.
Responsibilities
- Builds and maintains excellent relationships with media
- Understands industry landscape/issues that may directly and indirectly impact a client
- Proactively and reactively crafts and tells compelling stories on behalf of clients
- Leads the development of and is responsible for the execution of earned and integrated media programs
- Develops strategies/plans and media materials
- Brings a client-focused attitude that results in work being performed to the highest quality standards
- Counsels and interacts effectively with clients and leaders at client organizations
- Serves as key team member on client and inter-agency teams
- Mentors, coaches and develops direct reports and more junior team members
- Cultivates and participates in new business opportunities and pitches
Competencies
- Business Acumen– align talent strategies to drive business goals
- Client Service– client focus and ability to build trust and rapport across all levels
- Proactivity – exhibit relentless pursuit for new and innovative talent strategies
- Collaboration– build strong relationships at all levels across the organization
- Critical Thinking– ask probing questions; anticipate and address critical talent gaps and needs
- Conflict Resolution– possess sound judgment and savvy in navigating and resolving complex talent and organizational issues
Basic Qualifications
- 10+ years of experience. Agency experience preferred.
- Experience leading projects from start to finish, working with integrated teams across various disciplines.
- Earned strategy and media relations experience
- Bachelor’s degree
The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- 401k (with employer match)
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
- MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
- Short-Term Disability
- Paid Employee Family Leave
- Family Building Benefit
NYC Salary range: $180,000 – $245,000
Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; market considerations; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee’s/applicant’s background, pertinent experience, and qualifications.
Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.
#LI-JR1
We make our careers website accessible to any and all users. If you need an accommodation to participate in the application process, please contact us at JobAppAccommodation@ipgdxtra.com. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or vendors; rather it is strictly for applicants who require special assistance accessing our employment website. Due to volume, messages sent to this email address that are not related to an accommodation cannot be answered.
New York, New York, United States
Senior Manager, Earned Media - Sports
Weber Shandwick is seeking a Senior Manager to join our Integrated Media team within our New York Consumer Practice.
We Are Seeking
We are seeking a strong Senior Manager to join our Earned Media team within our Consumer Practice. You love the thrill of the pitch, building relationships with media, and constantly immersing yourself in pop culture, trends, and the world of sports. As a Senior Manager, you will have the opportunity to work on top-tier brands across a variety of consumer categories, with a focus on bringing stories to life at the intersection of culture, lifestyle, and sports.
What You Will Be Doing
- Develop a strong understanding of the client’s business and target audience, and work with strategists and creative team members to deliver innovative and integrated programs that earn attention
- Generate story ideas and topic angles, draft media materials, and pitch media to land earned coverage
- Monitor media outlets, understand industry issues that directly and indirectly affect the client, and analyze and distill meaningful insights from media coverage
- Support executive visibility efforts for clients including identifying, pitching and securing interviews and speaking engagements for C-suite
- Develop strategic messaging for clients and support the creation of media plans and proposals that take an integrated approach to driving awareness with target audiences
- Provide thoughtful recommendations for content creation and distribution across multiple channels to support paid, owned and earned channels
- Oversee client activations and programs including cultural/sporting events (e.g. Super Bowl, World Cup, Olympics, etc.)
- Counsel, coach and develop junior staff
- Lead logistics planning for media and other influencer events
- Support the development of KPIs to maximize media relations impact
- Highlight results, measuring success and promoting wins and key learnings to client
Competencies
- Business Acumen– align talent strategies to drive business goals
- Client Service– client focus and ability to build trust and rapport across all levels
- Proactivity – exhibit relentless pursuit for new and innovative talent strategies
- Collaboration– build strong relationships at all levels across the organization
- Critical Thinking– ask probing questions; anticipate and address critical talent gaps and needs
- Conflict Resolution– possess sound judgment and savvy in navigating and resolving complex talent and organizational issues
Basic Qualifications
- Public relations experience of approximately 5-7 years, agency or in-house
- Experience and/or passion for pop culture and sports
- Fluency in media relations
- Strong existing media and influencer relationships
- Ability to develop new media and influencer relations and turn those relationships into coverage
- Working knowledge of and comfort executing new media forms (e.g. podcasts, Substack, etc.)
- Drafting media materials, including pitches and press releases
- Optimizing programs in real-time to maximize success based on preliminary results
- Amplification of strategies, including paid, owned and earned
- Ability to plan, organize, monitor and control projects and programs, ensuring efficient utilization of technical and creative resources
- Ability to counsel clients on media relations activities and present plans in a convincing manner
- Ability to work effectively with integrated agency teams and diverse range of internal stakeholders
- Strong team leadership abilities
- Strong written and verbal communication skills in English
- Strong negotiation, presentation, collaboration and problem-solving skills
The Weber Shandwick Collective recognizes that your health and wellbeing are a priority. This is why we offer a full suite of benefits including:
- Medical
- Dental
- Vision
- 401k (with employer match)
- Tuition Reimbursement
- Juice Money – $60 monthly reimbursement to be used towards purchases that nourish your health, mind, body, and soul
- MyDays – Flexible holiday schedules
- Short-Term Disability
- Paid Employee Family Leave
- Family Building Benefit
This is a hybrid role tied to our New York office.
NYC Salary range: $85,000 – $100,000
Where an employee or prospective employee is paid within this range will depend on, among other factors, actual ranges for current/former employees in the subject position; market considerations; budgetary considerations; tenure and standing with the company (applicable to current employees); as well as the employee’s/applicant’s background, pertinent experience, and qualifications.
Weber Shandwick is proud to be an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Weber Shandwick recruits qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, gender, age, ethnic or national origin, protected veteran status, physical or mental disability, sexual orientation, gender identity, marital status or citizenship status.
#LI-SK1
We make our careers website accessible to any and all users. If you need an accommodation to participate in the application process, please contact us at JobAppAccommodation@ipgdxtra.com. This email address is not for general employment inquiries or vendors; rather it is strictly for applicants who require special assistance accessing our employment website. Due to volume, messages sent to this email address that are not related to an accommodation cannot be answered.