The Jester Sports & Entertainment: Sponsorship Manager (Deadline – Jan 16)

https://cricket.jobs/job-listing/sponsorship-manager/

We are the Jester Sports and Entertainment, sharing a real passion for South African Sports and Entertainment, our consultancy offers in-depth knowledge of sponsorship, brand expectation, collective goals and objective reach. A proudly South African business, we operate in a landscape of creativity, with our clients and events impacting and influencing the communities in which they operate. Offering a range of services, our results-driven process aims to unlock commercial value for rights holders and stakeholders through sustainable brand entrenchment.

1) Role Purpose

This role leads the operational, strategic, and on-the-ground delivery of all sponsorship, marketing, and partnership programmes within the agency. It requires a hybrid leader: someone who can think strategically, present to senior stakeholders, run national programmes — and still roll up their sleeves to execute operational tasks at stadiums, clubs, schools, festivals, and brand activations.

Success requires exceptional pressure management, high task discipline, strong relationship intelligence, and the ability to function in environments where priorities change rapidly and working days include long hours, travel, and physical demands.

2) Core Responsibilities

Sponsorship & Partnership Management

• Lead the end-to-end delivery of sponsorship rights: strategy, implementation, compliance, monitoring, evidence collection, and reporting.
• Interpret complex rights packages and protect the agency by ensuring accurate delivery across digital, PR, content, activations, appearances, hospitality, and branding.
• Maintain consistent communication with brands, federations, teams, athletes, suppliers, and rights-holders.
• Troubleshoot escalations during campaigns, activations, and match days, acting with calm authority.
• Develop renewal strategies and identify value expansions within existing partnerships.

Internal Project Ownership & Task Urgency Management

• Oversee all internal workflows with strict prioritisation and impeccable organisation.
• Translate strategic objectives into structured, delegated, measurable tasks.
• Maintain a centralised operational dashboard tracking deadlines, approvals, risks, deliverables, and internal capacity.
• Make judgement calls under pressure: what needs action now, what can wait, and what is mission-critical.
• Keep teams aligned and accountable across design, activation, finance, legal, content, and client service.
• Manage simultaneous workstreams across 6–10 clients without compromising quality.

Operations, Execution & On-the-Ground Leadership

• Lead all match-day and event-day operations across rugby, football, cricket, hockey, schools, and community platforms.
• Travel nationally to oversee activations, hospitality functions, stadium builds, retail touchpoints, and on-field branding.

• Manage “sweeping tasks” and operational detail:
• Moving equipment, loading/unloading vehicles, laying out branding, checking signage, testing AV, managing accreditation, supervising staff.
• Solving on-site problems with limited resources and high time pressure.
• Act as the on-site escalation point for all sponsors, suppliers, and partners.
• Ensure brand safety, compliance, and execution quality at all times.

Stadium-Specific Expertise

This section reflects the real nuance of your job.

• Navigate stadium protocols: access control, accreditation, security regulations, hospitality rules, and broadcast restrictions.
• Understand how stadia operate on match days: loading zones, blackout periods, media pits, VIP flows, pitch access rules, sponsor zones.
• Manage large teams of promoters, hostesses, photographers, videographers, security, and suppliers.
• Interpret and comply with stadium and team-specific brand restrictions.
• Oversee all stadium branding: LED boards, big screens, concourse installations, hospitality rooms, activation zones, and pitch-side experiences.
• Handle real-time crisis management in stadium environments (weather, equipment failure, crowd pressure, staffing issues).

New Business (Growth & Commercial Contribution)

This reflects your real function — identifying opportunities, structuring deals, and contributing to growth.

• Identify opportunities for upsells, renewals, and service expansions within existing clients.
• Support pitch development: strategy, decks, financial models, rights frameworks, valuation approaches.
• Attend new business meetings and represent the agency credibly with executives and rights-holders.
• Analyse markets, sponsorship trends, and competitor activity to generate relevant proposals.
• Contribute to productising agency services (e.g., rights valuation frameworks, activation models, reports, content systems).
• Assist in negotiating new partnerships by providing operational insight, feasibility guidance, and on-the-ground knowledge.

Creative, Content & Campaign Support

• Provide structured creative briefs and collaborate closely with designers, videographers, editors, and writers.
• Oversee athlete shoots, ambassador content days, stadium captures, and campaign rollouts.
• Ensure all content aligns with campaign strategy, tone, rights usage restrictions, and partner expectations.
• Deliver real-time social content support on match days when required.

Finance, Admin & Reporting

• Manage budgets, cost splits, quotes, PO requests, supplier payments, reconciliations, and approvals.
• Keep financial tracking transparent and updated across multiple campaigns simultaneously.
• Maintain organised folders for agreements, annexures, delivery logs, evidence packs, and WIP documents.
• Deliver monthly, quarterly, and annual reports with KPIs, analytics, evidence, and strategic recommendations.

3) Personal Profile

The ideal candidate has the following characteristics:

Pressure Mastery

• Operates with clarity under extreme pressure and fast-changing conditions.
• Makes strong decisions with limited information and tight timelines.
• Shows emotional control, even when others escalate.

High Resilience & Physical Stamina

• Comfortable with long event days, late nights, early starts, and extensive travel.
• Willing to “do the work” physically — from carrying boxes to directing crews on the field.

Operational Intelligence

• Instantly spots risk, inefficiency, and potential failure points.
• Can walk into a stadium or venue and immediately know what must be fixed.
• Thinks three steps ahead and prevents problems before they occur.

Task Discipline & Organisational Rigour

• Lives in lists, dashboards, and structured systems.
• Excellent time management across multiple clients and deadlines.
• Never drops the small details that make big things work.

Relationship Intelligence

• Reads people exceptionally well and adapts communication style to each stakeholder.
• Navigates politics in teams, federations, venues, and partner brands with maturity.
• Handles difficult conversations without damaging relationships.

Ownership Mentality

• Takes responsibility without being asked.
• Solves problems without drama.
• Behaves as if the business is their own.

Adaptability

• Thrives in uncertainty and is energised by a fast-moving environment.
• Flexible across role types: strategist, operations lead, activations driver, presenter, runner, problem-solver.

4) Requirements

Experience

• 4–8 years in sports sponsorship, brand activations, sports marketing, or events.
• Proven ability to lead stadium-based activations and national campaigns.
• Experience managing multiple clients simultaneously.

Technical Skills

• Advanced organisational and project management skills.
• Strong presentation-building and communication skills.
• Experience with legal documents, rights structures, and sponsorship agreements.
• Competence with digital tools: Asana/Notion, Google Workspace, Canva/PowerPoint, Slack, spreadsheets.
• Understanding of rugby, football, cricket, hockey, and SA sporting ecosystems.

5) Key Performance Indicators

• 100% fulfilment of rights delivery across all clients.
• No missed deadlines or deliverables.
• High-quality event execution with zero critical errors.
• Growth in client retention and new business opportunities.
• Accurate budget management and cost control.
• Positive client satisfaction scores and relationship health.
• Efficient internal workflow management.

6) What Makes This Role Unique

This role is the core operational engine of the agency — combining strategic presentation work, high-pressure stadium management, constant travel, and ground-level execution.

We are looking for someone who can:

• Pitch to a brand in the morning,
• Approve creative over lunch,
• Fly to a match-day activation in the afternoon,
• Carry equipment at the stadium,
• Manage promoters,
• Fix a crisis,
• Deliver a report that night,
• And wake up the next day ready to do all of it again.

Sounds like you? Apply on LinkedIn now! https://www.linkedin.com/jobs/view/4351313745