Director, Creators, Influencers & Athlete Development

About LOVB

The League One Volleyball (LOVB) is a mission-led sports performance, training, and media enterprise focused on empowering new generations of female athletes. Founded in 2019, LOVB leverages the recent Olympic success of women's volleyball to create a strong club business, a premier professional league, and a digital ecosystem that connects all aspects of LOVB. This community-focused approach aims to increase participation and fan engagement, while promoting the sport.

Job Summary

The Director, Creators, Influencers & Athlete Development plays a crucial role in helping LOVB and its athletes (both professional and youth) reach new audiences. This role involves identifying and onboarding a creator/influencer network, advising and assisting LOVB pros and youth club members to build their personal brands, and owning the execution of LOVB’s athlete marketing agreements. Reporting to the Sr. Director, Content & Strategy, this individual will:

• Build and cultivate a network of creators delivering consistent, year-round storytelling that scales across key events.
• Manage influencer & celebrity relationships for promotional & sponsorship content opportunities.
• Create and maintain a content advisory practice serving both pro & club.
• Partner with NIL & College Relations coordinator to ensure youth-to-pro symbiosis.
• Own execution of athlete marketing agreement deliverables in partnership with Pro Marketing.

Essential Duties And Responsibilities

Creator Network

• Identify & on-board volleyball creators ranging from videographers, editors, commentators, and photographers, both in front of and behind the camera.
• Work with SDCS to create rubric for evaluating, pricing, prioritizing creators to maximize creator budget.
• Own full pipeline of creator network from identification to contracting to scheduling to providing feedback.
• Partner with content, merch, marketing, legal, & internal NIL teams to ensure overall needs of the businesses are being met.
• Obsess over finding the next great creator, trend, &/or platform.

Influencer Management

• Identify & on-board celebrities & influencers who allow LOVB and its athletes to reach new and different audiences.
• Coordinate with Marketing & Partnerships teams to recognize opportunities for bringing in influencers for promotional & sponsored tentpoles and campaigns.
• Strategically identify and contract celebrity attendees to specific LOVB Pro matches & activations.
• Work with Partnerships team on contract negotiation, potential paid promotion from influencer account, plus invoicing, & payment.

LOVB Pro Athlete Advisement

• Partner with Athlete Success team to create consultancy program that elevates brand-building capabilities for LOVB Pros.
• Manage formal program for athlete social & content, including training modules & materials for athletes around social media best practices & advisement.
• Create process for athlete advisement on repeatable, consistent content creation + social media management.
• Facilitate remote or in-person brainstorming & feedback sessions for interested athletes.
• Capture, edit and develop content with LOVB athletes for tentpole moments for the athletes and the league.

LOVB Clubs Athlete Social Media Training Oversight

• Partner with Clubs Marketing to identify and prioritize needs surrounding social media and brand-building best practices.
• Create bespoke &/or adapt existing social media best practices materials for LOVB Club athletes, coaches, and clubs.
• Facilitate & co-lead annual (or bi-annual) social media training seminars in a remote, on-site, or hybrid format.

Athlete Marketing Agreement Execution

• Serve as the operational owner for executing deliverables outlined in LOVB Pro athlete marketing agreements.
• Closely partner with the Pro Marketing team to understand contracted commitments and build execution timelines for each athlete.
• Coordinate with internal stakeholders (content, partnerships, legal, social) to fulfill agreement obligations including appearances, social activations, content creation, and sponsor integrations.
• Track and report on agreement fulfillment status, flagging risks or gaps to Pro Marketing and leadership as needed.
• Serve as a key point of contact for athletes and their representatives regarding marketing agreement logistics.

Must Haves

• 7+ years of experience in sports social media and marketing.
• Built a creator or influencer network.
• Content creation experience working directly with professional or student-athletes.
• Proficiency in necessary tools & products needed for social media content creation, including but not limited to phone content capture, CapCut (or comparable) video editing, & Adobe Express (or comparable) photo editing.
• Strong understanding and POV on social media trends, best practices, & emerging trends.
• High attention to detail and organization paired with strong critical thinking; proven ability to track many deliverables simultaneously without losing sight of quality or deadlines.
• Excellent communication and interpersonal skills; comfortable interfacing with celebrities and pro athletes.
• Understanding of volleyball culture and do’s & don’t’s within that space.
• Experience executing athlete marketing agreements or managing contracted athlete deliverables.
• Comfortable operating cross-functionally.

Nice To Haves

• Experience in a league, team, network, streamer, or rights-holder environment.
• Videography capabilities with SLR or comparable camera type.
• Proficiency in Adobe suite of creative tools (Premiere, Photoshop, etc.).

Personal Attributes

• Thrives in a fast-paced, dynamic environment with shifting priorities.
• Solutions-oriented and able to identify when to escalate issues or challenges.
• Strong collaborator with excellent verbal and written communication skills.
• Capable of working independently while effectively partnering with a distributed, remote team.
• Positive, proactive, organized, and creative - brings fresh ideas to problem-solving.
• Highly adaptable and eager to learn in a rapidly evolving environment.