Media Partnerships Manager

Team: Media Rights

Activity: Full-time

Role grade: Manager (6)

Direct reports: 0

Indirect reports: 0

Reporting to: Senior Manager Media Rights Operations

Role location: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Job Purpose: As the Manager Media Partnerships, you will support the global media rights strategy across selected territories and lead key commercial relationships with major streaming, social, and digital platforms. You will take ownership of selected media rights territories outside China, managing the full commercial lifecycle from market assessment and prospecting through negotiation, contracting, renewal, and post-event review.

You will act as a key commercial point of contact for global platform partners and media rights agencies, helping maximise value across licensing, distribution, marketing support, audience growth, data, and other commercial or value-in-kind opportunities. Working across Media Rights, Strategic Distribution, Platform Partnerships, Agency Management, Market Intelligence, and Reporting, you will partner closely with Product/Distribution, Fan Marketing, Broadcast, Legal, Finance, and other Commercial teams to ensure effective execution and strong partner outcomes.

Duties and Responsibilities

Global platform partnerships

• Serve as the main day-to-day Commercial point of contact for major global streaming, social, and digital platforms. This may include YouTube, Twitch/Amazon, TikTok, Meta/Facebook, X, KICK, Snap and other relevant current or future platforms.

• Develop and manage strategic platform frameworks covering areas such as content distribution, official platform status, marketing support, promotional inventory, audience development, data/insights, commercial rights, and value-in-kind commitments.

• Support or lead commercial negotiations with platforms, ensuring licensing fees, minimum guarantees, revenue-share structures, performance-based models, marketing value, and other commercial opportunities are properly assessed before agreements are concluded.

• Coordinate internally with Distribution/Product, Fan Marketing, Broadcast, Legal, Finance, and other teams to ensure agreed platform commitments are executable and fully activated.

• Track platform performance and identify opportunities to deepen, expand, or restructure partnerships over time.

Media rights sales & territory ownership

• Support global media rights strategy development, including regional assessments, packaging logic, pricing, and deal playbooks.

• Own selected territories directly, developing relationships with broadcasters, streaming services, digital platforms, and other potential rights buyers.

• Manage the full sales cycle across assigned markets: prospecting, proposals, negotiation, internal approvals, contracting, renewals, and post-deal follow-up.

• Maintain the global media rights pipeline, tracking leads, deal status, key terms, timelines, commercial value, and risks/issues.

• Prepare negotiation materials, benchmarks, business cases, and internal approval documents for priority deals.

Agency management & partner coordination

• Act as the day-to-day Commercial point of contact for EFG and other media rights/distribution agencies supporting EWC and ENC.

• Manage agency pipelines, market plans, deliverables, deadlines, reporting, and follow-up against agreed commercial objectives.

• Ensure agencies work from the approved Media Rights and Strategic Distribution framework and escalate conflicts, missed opportunities, or execution risks early.

• Support agency performance reviews and recommendations on scope, incentives, renewals, and future market coverage.

Market intelligence, forecasting & planning

• Conduct market, broadcaster, platform, and competitor analysis to identify priority territories and commercial opportunities.

• Build and maintain media rights forecasts by market, partner, and competition, including scenario and sensitivity analysis where relevant.

• Support the development of territory strategies that balance Media Rights revenue, exclusivity, strategic reach, and Hours Watched considerations.

• Provide benchmarks and data-driven recommendations to support annual planning, target setting, pricing, and investment decisions.

Reporting, performance analysis & post-event reviews

• Consolidate Media Rights and platform partnership performance for leadership, including revenue, pipeline, partner delivery, audience contribution, and other agreed KPIs.

• Prepare post-event reviews and partner/market assessments, identifying what worked, what did not, and recommendations for the next cycle.

• Support steering documents, board updates, senior management presentations, and ad-hoc strategic analyses.

• Maintain a clear source of truth for key rights deals, agency activities, platform partnerships, forecasts, and market status.

Cross-functional deal execution & governance

• Coordinate with Broadcast, Product/Distribution, Marketing, Legal, Finance, Procurement, and other relevant teams to ensure rights and platform obligations are understood and executable.

• Help ensure major distribution and platform agreements receive an appropriate commercial-value review before signature, while material exclusivity decisions are assessed for their audience and distribution impact.

• Support contract renewals and post-mortems, incorporating learnings into future rights, platform, and agency strategies.

Education and Experience

• Bachelor’s degree in business, Marketing, Media, Economics, Communications, or a related field.

• 5+ years of experience in media rights, platform partnerships, digital distribution, business development, or media partnerships, ideally in esports, gaming, sports, entertainment, or a major digital platform.

Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities

• Strong understanding of media rights, content licensing, exclusivity models, digital distribution, and how audience scale translates into rights and commercial value.

• Demonstrated experience managing or negotiating partnerships with major streaming, social, video, or digital platforms; existing platform relationships are a strong advantage.

• Strong commercial negotiation skills, with the ability to assess fixed fees, minimum guarantees, revenue share, performance-based models, marketing commitments, data value, and value-in-kind components.

• Experience in media rights sales and/or business development, including direct ownership of markets, partners, and revenue opportunities.

• Strong agency-management skills and ability to manage external partners against clear targets, timelines, deliverables, and reporting requirements.

• Advanced analytical skills (Excel/Sheets, forecasting, market analysis, KPI dashboards) and the ability to translate data into clear commercial recommendations.

• Strong project management skills: able to structure complex workstreams, manage multiple stakeholders, and deliver against tight timelines.

• Excellent stakeholder management skills; able to work across Commercial, Product/Distribution, Broadcast, Marketing, Legal, Finance, and external partners/agencies.

• Passion for esports and digital culture, with strong awareness of the evolving global streaming, social, creator, and platform ecosystem.

• Prior experience working in KSA and an understanding of local nuances.

• Fluent in written and spoken English and Arabic.

Benefits

• Relocation support

• Transportation allowance

• Competitive compensation

• Housing allowance

• VIP medical insurance

• Opportunity to work on a new exciting project with a group of passionate professionals. You will get the freedom to excel and make a real impact

Diversity disclaimer

Our mission is to build a diverse organization where our members, regardless of background or identity, have a sense of belonging. We genuinely believe that thanks to creating a collaborative environment where different perspectives are valued, we can achieve more. Together, we want to reshape the boundaries of what is achievable in the esports domain.