Let’s analyze the 100+ tech, marketing, sales, and social media jobs currently available across the NBA, NFL, WNBA, MLB, and NHL.
In pro sports, it tends to be the high-profile hires that get all the attention: The commissioners, general managers, coaches, and (of course) the players. But there’s a whole host of other important roster spots up for grabs year to year across the sporting spectrum that need filling.
You may not be aware of the existence of every last one. But even a quick glance at the current landscape of jobs in sports can tell us an awful lot about a particular league’s trajectory. What it’s valuing in the years to come — and whom it’s valuing.
From a social media coordinator for Major League Soccer to a chief growth officer for the WNBA, hiring is heating back up across our major sports leagues as they emerge from the worst of the pandemic. Let’s scan the available positions across each of these organizations and offer some insight about their priorities for investment and expansion for the long haul.
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What Are the Hiring Trends Across Major Sports Leagues?
An analysis of job listings featured on hiring websites for each of the professional sports leagues and associations shows there are approximately 128 open positions available as of this writing across the four major leagues, the WNBA, and MLS.
Major League Soccer
MLS is on the move building out its multimedia team with a handful of jobs available in the technology and media categories. One such position, the Senior Coordinator, Social Media, is responsible for helping position the MLS as “the most engaging and innovative sports brand in social media.”
- Jobs available: +/- 17
- Locations: New York
- Source: jobs.mlssoccer.com
National Basketball Association & Women’s National Basketball Association
The NBA and WNBA the most open opportunities across all of the major sports leagues. A large portion of the available jobs are for roles in Global Media Distribution and Global Partnership. One such position is for Head of New Business Development for the Basketball Africa League — a new venture for the NBA that’s worth an estimated billion dollars and counting.
- Jobs available: +/- 76 jobs
- Locations: London, Mexico City, New Jersey, New York, Hong Kong, Madrid, Senegal, Shanghai, and Johannesburg
- Source: https://nbacareers.nba.com
National Football League
The most valuable league in global sports has the second most positions available. Many of the corporate-level jobs up for grabs in the NFL center around production management and product operations roles.
Among the notable positions available is Manager, Social Content; according to the official posting, the role is meant to “oversee day-to-day programming and content creation on platforms such as TikTok, and other emerging platforms that the NFL may adopt in the future.”
- Jobs available: +/- 32
- Locations: California and New York
- Source: nfl.com/careers
National Hockey League
The NHL doesn’t have much available in the way of league jobs. The league actually doesn’t even post jobs on its own website, but instead relies on teamworkonline.com for postings.
This may explain why one of the only open roles is Director, Recruiting — who will be responsible for managing “all phases of hiring the National Hockey League’s (NHL) U.S. employees.”
- Jobs available: +/- 2
- Locations: New York
- Source: hockeyjobs.nhl.com
Major League Baseball
The National Pastime very much looks to be in the midst of a hiring boom — particularly in the areas of product management, software engineering, and ticketing technology.
Marketing is also in the mix at MLB — most notably the Vice President, Digital Marketing & Media position responsible for driving “audience growth, acquisition, retention, awareness and affinity” across every platform under the sun.
- Jobs available: +/ – 63
- Locations: New York, Colorado, California, Minnesota, New Jersey, Florida, and Washington, D.C.,
- Source: mlb.com/careers
New Era, New Roles
The sports world has a responsibility not just to adapt to new digital mediums and implement emerging technologies, but to rise to meet an ever-evolving social and cultural climate.
In looking at some of the jobs available across each of the leagues, it’s clear some of the opportunities are very much in response to major changes taking place throughout the core of professional sports not just in terms of infrastructure and activations, but character.
- In the MLS, there’s a Senior Coordinator, Social Responsibility role that’s expected to target key “social issues, raise the visibility of the League, its clubs and players, and help drive value to the enterprise.”
- In the NFL, there’s a Senior Manager, Digital Gaming position responsible for the “day-to-day management of the NFL’s key video game and mobile gaming partner, Electronic Arts.”
- In the MLB, there’s a Senior Engineer, Gaming & VR role that will be expected to join a team “for a new, exciting baseball game title.”
So, whether you’re a full-stack engineer looking to get into the game or a socially conscious social media ace hoping to take diversity, equity, and inclusion narratives to the big leagues, the number of relevant opportunities out there are perhaps as broad as they’ve eve been as major sports emerge from the days of COVID-19.
And this doesn’t even take into account the many roles available within individual franchises, let alone subsidiary programs like minor league clubs and community/philanthropy organizations.
Want to work in sports? Especially if you’re in the business of creating new social connections among fans and keeping the conversation going across platforms, there’s never been a better time to take your best shot.
