The Athletic is looking for an entrepreneurial, data-driven, and creatively ambitious Head of Social & Off-Platform Growth 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.
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.
Skills Required
- 7-12 years of experience in digital media
- Proven track record of scaling social media audiences and YouTube channels
- Deep platform fluency across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and podcast platforms
- Experience managing or overseeing creator relationships
- Comfort owning a P&L and making budget decisions
- Strong analytical skills
- Exceptional communicator
- A genuine passion for sports, sports media, and the creator economy
What We Do
Here for every sports story that matters. -- The Athletic (http://theathletic.com) is a subscription-based media publisher of smarter sports coverage for die-hard fans. Founded in 2016, The Athletic’s all-star team of writers have produced thousands of quality stories for subscribers free of ads, pop-ups and auto-play videos. The Athletic now offers in-depth local coverage in 47 North American pro sports markets along with premium national coverage across MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, NCAA & more. Readers can count on original, authentic storytelling written by talented local and national sports journalists like Ken Rosenthal, Pierre LeBrun, Seth Davis, Stewart Mandel, Shams Charania and many more. The company is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
