Vice President, Distribution and Strategy

LEARFIELD•New York, NY

3d•$165,000 - $200,000

About The Position

The Vice President, Content Strategy & Distribution owns content strategy, creative direction, and content operations across a portfolio of collegiate athletic properties, with particular focus on leading and growing Learfield’s content capabilities across the Big Ten. This senior leadership role sets the vision and strategy for how content is created, distributed, and monetized across the portfolio. The VP leads content professionals embedded within collegiate athletic departments and serves as a strategic partner to school leadership, revenue teams, brand partners, and internal stakeholders. The role sits at the intersection of content, college sports, media, and business. It is responsible for creating content that strengthens connections between schools and their audiences while creating meaningful commercial opportunities. The role is based in Dallas, Texas, or New York City and requires regular overnight travel to partner schools, industry events, and key meetings.

Requirements

15+ years of experience in content, media, sports, entertainment, branded content, or a related field.
Significant experience leading content teams and developing content strategies for major brands, media platforms, sports properties, or entertainment organizations.
Strong leadership, mentorship, and team-building skills, with a track record of developing high-performing distributed teams across multiple properties, markets, or organizations.
Deep understanding of college athletics and the college sports media landscape, including its culture, audiences, and business dynamics; meaningful experience working with or around Power Four programs, particularly Big Ten institutions.
Strong understanding of social platforms, digital video, streaming, and emerging media formats.
Demonstrated ability to develop content strategies that drive audience growth and commercial results.
Experience developing branded content and working with sales teams, advertisers, and commercial partners.
Experience working directly with senior executives, clients, athletic department leadership, and other high-level stakeholders.
Strong understanding of how content, audience, and commercial strategy intersect.
Demonstrated ability to use audience and performance data to inform content strategy, investment, and optimization.
Exceptional communication, writing, and presentation skills.
Ability to work at both the strategic and executional level, moving between setting broad vision and helping teams solve day-to-day challenges.
Proven ability to build trusted relationships and work effectively in a complex, multi-stakeholder environment.
Willingness and ability to travel overnight regularly to partner schools, industry events, and key meetings.

Nice To Haves

Experience with analytics platforms such as Zoomph.
Experience with project management systems such as Airtable.
Experience working in Meta Business Suite, TikTok Analytics, and YouTube Studio.

Responsibilities

Lead content vision and strategy across collegiate athletic properties, particularly Big Ten schools.
Partner with NIL, athlete marketing, and school teams to develop student-athlete content strategies and responsibly incorporate athletes and creators into programming and commercial opportunities.
Lead, develop, and mentor distributed teams of content leaders, producers, creators, and social specialists embedded within partner athletic departments.
Build relationships with athletic department leadership, school social teams, creators, coaches, athletes, and other stakeholders, serving as the senior content partner.
Develop property-specific content strategies based on each school's brand, audience, priorities, and commercial objectives.
Build and execute strategies to grow audience engagement, content inventory, social performance, and revenue.
Partner with sales and revenue teams to develop branded content opportunities that align the objectives of schools, athletes, and brand partners.
Identify content products, formats, franchises, and revenue opportunities that can scale across multiple properties.
Establish content KPIs and measurement frameworks, and use audience and performance data to improve content strategy and investment.
Evaluate performance across schools, platforms, campaigns, and content franchises and turn insights into actionable recommendations.
Establish best practices for short-form video, social content, branded content, original programming, and emerging content formats.
Ensure content reflects each school's voice, culture, and identity while maintaining quality across the portfolio.
Create scalable processes and tools so successful strategies, formats, insights, and programs can be replicated and tailored to each school's voice and tone.
Work with branded content, production, sales, distribution, marketing, and other internal teams to create integrated content strategies and maximize business opportunities.
Help schools increase the value of owned and social platforms through stronger programming, organic distribution, audience development, and content optimization.
Monitor trends across college sports, social media, digital video, streaming, and media, and identify opportunities for partner schools.
Provide strategic direction, coaching, and mentorship to property content teams; serve as a senior resource for content strategy, creative development, and execution.
Establish and maintain standards for storytelling, voice, tone, quality, and brand alignment.
Lead competitive and industry research to identify opportunities, platforms, formats, and best practices.
Help shape Learfield’s broader content and owned media strategy, including scalable content platforms and products beyond individual school properties.
Support senior leadership with strategic planning, business reviews, board presentations, and other company-wide initiatives.
Partner with senior leadership on budgets and resource allocation to support team needs and growth opportunities.
Connect stakeholders across the organization to address ongoing challenges and unlock opportunities.
Build trusted stakeholder relationships and use sound judgment and communication skills to navigate complex issues and competing priorities.
Perform other related duties as assigned.

Benefits

Medical insurance
Dental insurance
Vision insurance
Health Savings Account
Life insurance and other insurance plans
Flexible Paid Time Off (minimum 10+ days annually)
Parental Leave
20 paid holidays
401(k) with match
Short- and long-term disability
Annual discretionary bonus and/or sales compensation may be available based on individual and company performance.