Audience Editor - Sports

Star Tribune Branding•Minneapolis, MN

1d•Hybrid

About The Position

The Minnesota Star Tribune is seeking an Audience Editor for Sports to drive audience growth and engagement for their sports journalism. This role will be embedded with the Sports desk and serve as the lead strategist for audience development, helping to shape coverage plans, storytelling approaches, and maximize the reach of their journalism. The Audience Editor will work closely with sports editors and reporters to identify and execute opportunities to expand their audience during significant moments, daily coverage, and enterprise storytelling. The ideal candidate is deeply immersed in sports media and fan culture, understands how to reach both diehard fans and the sports-culture curious, and follows various sports across multiple digital platforms. This role is part of the centralized Audience Team, providing dedicated support to the Sports desk while connecting it to broader newsroom strategy and best practices. It is a highly collaborative role requiring nimbleness across teams.

Requirements

A bachelor’s degree in journalism or a related field, or an equivalent combination of education and work-related experience.
Minimum of 3 years of experience in audience development, digital journalism, sports journalism, social media, newsletters, analytics, SEO, product strategy, or a related field.
Strong understanding of audience behavior across digital platforms, including social media, newsletters, search, homepage, mobile, and video experiences.
Ability to analyze performance data and translate it into clear, actionable newsroom insights that inform coverage, framing, and distribution strategy.
Experience developing strategies that drive audience growth, subscriber value, and engagement.
Strong research skills, including the ability to synthesize multiple data sources into useful audience segments, trends, and recommendations.
Excellent communication skills and the ability to collaborate effectively with editors, reporters, and platform teams.
Strong news judgment and an understanding of how sports audiences engage with breaking news, live events, analysis, features, personalities, enterprise journalism, and community conversation.
Knowledge of fan behavior, digital habits, and the evolving ways audiences discover and build loyalty with sports journalism.
Experience collaborating across editorial, product, social, newsletter, video, or audience teams.
Commitment to journalistic excellence, public service, and audience-centered decision-making.

Nice To Haves

Minimum of 5 years of experience in a newsroom, sports media, audience development, or platform strategy role, especially with experience using data and research to grow and engage audiences.
Experience training, coaching, and developing journalists in audience growth, SEO, analytics, and digital storytelling best practices.
Familiarity with analytics tools and audience measurement platforms.
Experience working on subscription-based or membership-driven media products.
Familiarity with Minnesota sports audiences, fan communities, or major sports coverage rhythms.
Experience developing audience strategies that reach both loyal users and new or emerging audiences.
Social media content creation and video editing experience is a definite plus.

Responsibilities

Serve as the lead audience strategist for the Sports desk, partnering with editors and reporters on coverage planning, story presentation, and distribution.
Use audience data, research, search trends, and performance insights to help shape coverage decisions and identify opportunities for growth.
Help the Sports team better understand priority audiences, including loyal subscribers, casual fans, team-specific audiences, younger readers, and people discovering journalism on new platforms.
Advise on how Sports stories are framed, timed, and presented across StarTribune.com, YouTube, search, newsletters, social media, mobile, and other platforms.
Partner with social media editors, newsletter producers, and the homepage team to strengthen the reach and impact of Sports coverage, especially during breaking news and major sports moments.
Identify opportunities to test new approaches to headlines, story formats, live coverage, video, newsletters, and audience engagement, then help the desk apply what works.
Collaborate with the centralized Audience Team to bring shared tools, expertise, and best practices to Sports while contributing to a culture of experimentation, audience service, and journalistic excellence.