Location: New York, USA

Closing date: 25th October 2016

Overview: 

The National Hockey League is seeking a Marketing Director to work on the strategy, development and implementation of marketing & media campaigns to support the NHL brand, events, products & media properties.

The position will:

• – Develop and execute (from inception to completion) marketing objectives, strategies, tactics & measurements that support the League’s overall marketing and business goals.
• – Work with internal NHL departments & business units (e.g. NHL.com, NHL Network, Events, Consumer Products, etc) to develop annual marketing & media plans that will help achieve specific marketing & business goals.
• – Manage relationships and campaigns working with partners (e.g. agencies, production companies) and the NHL’s in-house creative/production department.
• – Participate in consumer research and market analysis – gathering quantitative & qualitative data from a variety of primary & secondary sources (e.g. Nielsen, Scarborough, Simmons, etc) to identify consumer insights, segments and market opportunities.
• – Collaborate with the NHL’s US and Canadian national rightsholders (NBC, Rogers Sportsnet, TVA) on marketing campaigns to drive viewership for weekly telecasts & major events (e.g. Winter Classic, All-Star-Weekend, Stanley Cup Playoffs, etc).
• – Work with the NHL Sales department to develop and execute sponsorship opportunities connected to NHL marketing initiatives (e.g. All-Star Fan Vote, Playoffs Bracket Challenge, etc).
• – Lead the media planning & negotiating of local market buys and partnerships to support NHL events within the host cities – working collaboratively with the NHL Events & Sales departments, as well as the local club.
• – Optimize the NHL’s owned, earned & paid media across all channels to maximize its impact for marketing initiatives/campaigns – including working with the NHL’s social media, database/CRM & editorial content teams.
• – Work with analytics partners (internal & external) to establish KPIs and measure marketing/media performance to determine if original objectives & strategies are being met.
• – Develop and manage media & production budgets for a variety of marketing initiatives/campaigns.
• Qualifications:

The qualified candidate will have a minimum of 10 years of marketing/advertising experience at an agency or company and significant experience planning & managing large campaigns across multiple media channels (TV, radio, print, digital, social, OOH, etc). Bachelor’s degree required.

The ideal candidate should have strong written, verbal & interpersonal communication skills, be detail oriented with strong analytical skills and have the ability to work and adapt in a fast paced environment. Marketing/media experience at a sports league, club or television network is a plus. Knowledge and understanding of hockey is a plus.

How to apply: 

Note: When you apply for this job online, you will be required to answer the following questions:

1. This position is located in NYC. If neessary, are you able to relocate at your own expense? (The NHL does not pay relocation fees).
2. Do you have the legal right to work in the United States?
3. What are your salary requirements for this position?
4. Where have you previously worked where you were responsible to develop marketing and media plans?
5. Do you have marketing/media experience at a sports league or club? If yes, where?
6. On a scale of 1-10, please rate your knowledge of the NHL.

Apply HERE

Turkish Super League club Galatasaray have been banned from European competition for a year by UEFA after breaching financial fair play rules.

The club will not be able to compete in the Champions League or Europa League if they qualify this season or next.

Full story HERE.

American sports broadcaster ESPN has signed a multi-year strategic partnership deal with Chinese online platform Tencent.

The agreement will see sports games and Mandarin-language ESPN content localised and exclusively distributed in China across Tencent’s digital platforms.

It is initially focused on NBA basketball and international soccer, and includes the potential to expand to other sports over the course of the agreement.

The 2016 NBA playoffs in April will be the first games to feature ESPN analysis in Chinese on Tencent’s digital channels.

ESPN experts will be on-site at five games per week to provide exclusive, live Chinese-language analysis as part of Tencent’s NBA coverage. ESPN will also provide a weekly NBA opinion and debate program for Tencent users.

The new partners say the agreement “will help ESPN establish its most significant digital presence ever in China.”

Tencent has also acquired the exclusive, live digital rights in mainland China to the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament (known as “March Madness”,) more than 100 regular season college basketball games and the X Games.

“This agreement will help us serve millions of Chinese fans and bring our coverage of basketball, international soccer and other sports to them like never before,” said Russell Wolff, executive VP, ESPN International.

Sam Xie Yuefeng, GM of marketing and business development at Tencent Sports said: “This relationship with ESPN will accelerate Tencent’s development as a comprehensive and professional digital platform and set benchmarks for the Chinese sports media sector.”

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The British Paralympic Association (BPA) today announced that the ParalympicsGB leadership team used successfully at London 2012 and Sochi 2014 will be implemented once more for Rio 2016.

Led by President and Head of Delegation Tim Reddish, prostate the BPA’s Director of Sport, Penny Briscoe has been named as the team’s Chef de Mission and CEO Tim Hollingsworth as Secretary General.

As Chef de Mission, Briscoe will be responsible for all aspects of the ParalympicsGB team in the build-up to and during the Rio Paralympic Games. She will drive the BPA’s mission to be the best prepared team and to support athletes to produce world’s best performances.

Meanwhile Hollingsworth will once again take up the position of Secretary General, which he held at both London 2012 and Sochi 2014, and which is responsible for all aspects of ParalympicsGB’s presence at the Games off the field of play, including partner support, stakeholder and international relations.

The team will come together under BPA Chairman and former Paralympic medallist Tim Reddish OBE, who will be the President and Head of Delegation for ParalympicsGB in Rio.

Tim Hollingsworth said: “I am delighted today to be able to announce Penny Briscoe as Chef de Mission for ParalympicsGB at Rio 2016, alongside other key members of the senior leadership team. 

“Penny has the perfect experience, expertise and passion for the role and she will bring all of this to bear over the coming two years.  We are lucky to have her on our team.

“The separation again of leadership for Rio is also the right approach.

“In both London 2012 and earlier this year in Sochi, we saw the benefit of dividing our expertise between two senior management teams: one of which is highly sport-focussed, athlete-centred work and is responsible for delivering on our mission on the field of play and one of which is responsible for ensuring that the BPA remains a leading nation in the Paralympic movement.

“The two areas are quite different and our experience at the last two Games demonstrates that it is absolutely right to keep them separate.”

On her appointment, Briscoe said: “It is an absolute honour to take up the position of Chef de Mission for ParalympicsGB at Rio 2016.

“Rio will be a very different Games from London with around 80% of our Team competing at their first ‘away Games’ but I am confident that we are preparing well for both the challenges and opportunities.

“We have experience in key roles and talent throughout the team; an exciting blend which will, I believe, will provide the most cohesive support framework ever for ParalympicsGB.

“I am delighted to be offered the opportunity to lead the team in Rio and will be working hard alongside my colleagues to ensure we are best prepared to thrive in the Games environment.”

Qatar has been cleared to host the 2022 FIFA World Cup after Hans-Joachim Eckert, the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, released a statement on the bidding process for the tournament.

A 42-page report, based on an 18-month inquiry, was published by German judge Eckert and didn’t find Qatar guilty of any corruption allegations, effectively confirming the World Cups in 2018 and 2022 will be held in Russia and Qatar as scheduled as any rule breaches by these countries were “of very limited scope”.

“In particular, the effects of these occurrences on the bidding process as a whole were far from reaching any threshold that would require returning to the bidding process, let alone reopening it,” stated Eckert.

“The chairman of the Chairman of the Adjudicatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee reaches the conclusion that the potentially problematic facts and circumstances identified by the Report regarding the Qatar 2022 bid were, all in all, not suited to compromise the integrity of the FIFA World Cup 2018/2022 bidding process as a whole.”

The report also clears Qatar of involvement in any payments by Mohamed Bin Hammam, the Qatari former FIFA Executive Committee member who was banned for life by FIFA.

England 2018 Bid Criticised

The English FA came in for some heavy criticism in the report for their bid to host the 2018 World Cup.

The FA’s dealings with former FIFA Vice-President Jack Warner were highlighted in the report, with FIFA claiming the FA acted improperly to win his vote.

Warner quit his role in 2011 after allegations of bribery.

The report stated: “The England 2018 bid team placed particular emphasis on winning fomer FIFA Executive Committee member (in the position of a FIFA Vice-President) and then CONCACAF President Jack Warner.

“According to the Report, Mr. Warner sought to exploit the perception of his power to control “blocks of votes” within the FIFA Exceutive Committee, showering the England 2018 bid team with inappropriate requests.

“According to the findings of the Investigatory Chamber of the FIFA Ethics Committee, the bid team often accommodated Mr. Warner’s wishes in apparent violation of bidding rules and the FIFA Code of Ethics.”

“Relevant occurrences included Mr Warner pressing, in 2009 and again in 2010, England’s bid team to help a person of interest to him find a part-time job in the UK.

“England 2018’s top officials in response not only provided the individual concerned with employment opportunities, but also kept Mr Warner apprised of their efforts as they solicited his support for the bid.

“The bid team often accommodated Mr. Warner’s wishes, in apparent violation of bidding rules and the FIFA code of ethics

“England’s response to Mr. Warner’s – improper – demands, in at a minimum always seeking to satisfy them in some way, damaged the integrity of the ongoing bidding process. Yet, such damage was again of rather limited extent.”

In the statement, world football’s governing body acknowledged the work of the inquiry and thanked those who co-operated as well as stating its satisfaction that a “degree of closure had been reached”.

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iSportconnect, the world’s largest private network for sports business professionals, staged an ‘insightful’ first Sponsorship Brands Masterclass today in London, in association with WPP.

The Masterclass was held at the City Football Group London Office where 30 of the world’s leading brands gathered for the unique event.

Some of the brands represented at the event included LG, Nike, Adidas, Virgin Media, Microsoft, Nokia, Barclays, Nissan, Sony, Deutsche Bank, Betfair and many more.

The event was kicked off by guest speaker Sir Martin Sorrell, CEO of WPP, who addressed the delegates and gave an overview into WPP and an insight into the general trends in the business world.

Sir Martin then moderated a one-to-one discussion between himself and Manchester City and City Football Group CEO Ferran Soriano.

That was followed by a panel discussion between three major brands, moderated by WPP’s Business Development Director, Jonathan Lenson.

The panel included Mark Jones, European Sponsorship and Brand Engagement Manager at Ford, Giancarlo Bernini, Head of Global Sponsorship at Sony Mobile Communications and Dominik Mitsch, Head of Marketing at Red Bull Racing.

Speaking after the event, Sir Martin Sorrell said: “We really enjoyed it, it was interesting, we had the audience engaged and asking a lot of questions, we covered the global context of city football group and football and soccer as a whole.

“I was very pleased with the engagement from the audience, we spoke about sponsorship, the value of sponsorship, how sponsors can get value, how digital media is changing the nature of the sport and the sponsorship of it, all in all it was a very good morning.”

Sir Martin was especially impressed with the format of the event and the interactivity with the audience.

“It was very good, Ferran was willing to answer all the questions which was good,” he added.

“The people were prepared to intervene as opposed to it being staged and I think they asked the questions that were on their mind, as opposed to just questions by wrote which was really good, it was really good engagement, I was pleased with it.”

Manchester City and City Football Group CEO Ferran Soriano added: “It was interesting; it was really good we were discussing really insightful issues and there was a lot of interesting participation from everybody here.”

Like Sir Martin, Soriano was also happy with the interaction between the panellists and the audience.

He said: “This was very, very important, it wasn’t just about somebody talking and a lot of people listening, there were very interesting and insightful questions that brought new insights, so actually the participation was very important.”

Red Bull’s Dominik Mitsch was happy to share a room with members from other major brands and from the same industry.

He said: “It was a brilliant opportunity to meet other people from different sports, other brands, getting them all under one roof, it was a great event and a great occasion.”

Describing the format of the event, Mitsch added: “I think it was very well done, it was faultless, I couldn’t do it any better and the panel worked very well.”

More Pictures Below:

Delegates at the Sponsorship Brands Masterclass

Networking in full flow at the Masterclass 

Giancarlo Bernini (Sony, left) & Ferran Soriano (Man City & City Football, centre) 

Tom Glick (Chief Commercial & Operating Officer at City Football Group)

iSportconnect interviewing Ferran Soriano post-event

iSportconnect would like to thank all of our panellists, delegates and partners for a fantastic Masterclass. Video highlights will be available through iSportconnect TV soon.

iSportconnect will hold three Directors’ Club events in November, two in the Middle East in Abu Dhabi and Dubai before a return to London for the final event of 2014.

Another Brands Masterclass will be held in 2015, the date will be confirmed at the end of the year.

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The Hong Kong FA has agreed a partnership deal with Sportradar, apoplectic the world’s leading betting fraud monitor.

Sportradar’s Fraud Detection System (FDS) will provide the Hong Kong FA with intelligence about global betting on over 100 games per season until July 2017.

The deal was signed and confirmed at the Soccerex Global Convention in Manchester where the agreement was a topic of discussion as the Hong Kong FA’s Mark Sutcliffe and Sportradar’s Darren Small were both on the panel on match-fixing.

The agreement will see Sportradar’s system cover all 113 games of Hong Kong’s Premier League, League Cup, Community Shield, Senior Shield, FA Cup and Play-offs each season.

Sportradar’s Director of Integrity Darren Small, said: “As part of our commitment to providing our clients with 24/7 coverage of football worldwide, Sportradar opened its first Asian office in Hong Kong.

“So it is incredibly exciting for us to add our ‘local’ FA from Hong Kong to the list of associations who will not compromise on integrity.

“It was a really proud moment for me to be able to discuss our shared commitment to safeguarding football with Mark [Sutcliffe] before the eyes of some of the most important stakeholders and decision-makers in global football”.

Mark Sutcliffe added: “It has really been impossible to ignore the credibility and reputation of Sportradar’s Security Services both in the region and internationally.

“So to have the FDS monitoring all our professional level football is reassuring and to have that in place for three seasons underlines our own commitment to keeping our competitions safe.

Soccerex is the forum where football meets and to be able to put pen to paper here in Manchester and to be able to show our resolve to our fellow football leaders attending the match-fixing panel this morning was an opportunity the Hong Kong FA could not miss.”