Director Media Planning

Responsibilities

• Analyzes market trends, fan insights, and competitive landscape to identify opportunities and develop innovative media approaches.
• Develop strong partnerships with external media buying agencies and key media partners to maximize spend & alpha testing opportunities.
• Develops a comprehensive media strategy that aligns with business objectives.
• Stewards effective communication and understanding needs of marketing teams, internal stakeholders, and external league partners ensuring team is set up to effectively execute campaigns across ESPN O&O and paid media channels.
• Partners with Research & Analytics teams to evaluate performance and make data-driven decisions to influence future strategies.
• Encourages a culture based on teamwork, collaboration, and intellectual ownership to drive results as well as manages, coaches, and mentors managers and employees to inspire career growth.
• Provides digital marketing & creative thought leadership based on media results across ESPN Marketing.
• Collaborate with Sports Marketing teams to drive audience expansion and reach across various properties.
• Required Qualifications:
• Minimum 8 years of experience in strategy and planning of large media campaigns.
• Minimum 3 years of experience in leadership and development, directly leading, managing, and growing teams.
• Experience in engaging, managing, and building relationships with senior and executive level leaders.
• A progressive mindset with proven success driving a business forward with innovative ideas.
• Excellent verbal and presenting skills to be an effective and persuasive communicator.
• Experience with audience targeting, data and tagging needs; implementation, reporting, and measurement.
• An eye for emerging industry trends and topics, with an ability to shape business-building opportunities.
• Fluency in managing cross-functional collaborators to deliver unified work.
• A data-driven mentality, with a hunger to continuously refine strategy, performance, and opportunity through insights.
• Deep understanding of the media landscape, consumer behavior, media consumption, and how to connect strategic thought leadership with activation across both digital and traditional channels.

Requirements

• Creative thinker who enjoys finding creative solutions by bringing brands together in unique and unexpected ways.
• The ideal candidate should be passionate, take initiative, have superior relationship skills, effectively multi-tasks, and is detail oriented.
• Sports/entertainment experience preferred.
• Demonstrates strong critical thinking and problem-solving skills with an ability to translate complex data into actionable insights in a clear and concise manner.
• Driven self-starter who is comfortable working both independently and collaboratively across multiple departments and disciplines in a fast-paced environment.
• Required Education:
• Bachelor's degree in marketing, business, or a related field
• #ESPNMedia
• Job Posting Segment:
• ESPN Creative Studio and Marketing
• Job Posting Primary Business:
• Marketing & Consumer Engagement
• Primary Job Posting Category:
• Media Planning & Buying - Sports
• Employment Type:
• Full time
• Primary City, State, Region, Postal Code:
• New York, NY, USA
• Alternate City, State, Region, Postal Code:
• Date Posted:
• 2026-06-25

Benefits

Additional Information

Job Posting Title: Director Media Planning Req ID: 10153184 Job Description: The ESPN Media team combines the power of brand building and performance marketing through integrated planning, audience understanding and measurement to drive results. This role is critical in developing and leading holistic full-funnel Media strategy & planning across all media channels & platforms to increase brand awareness, retention & acquisition of ESPN brands & platforms. The ideal candidate is a creative thinker who utilizes collaboration in the highest form to drive business results. This position reports to the Sr. Dir Media Planning. This role is located in New York, NY.

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