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Senior Manager - Sports Marketing
About the role
The Senior Manager – Sports Marketing leads adidas India's Sports Marketing function, building and managing a portfolio of athletes, teams, federations, communities, and strategic partners to strengthen adidas' position as the leading sports brand in India. Day-to-day work includes defining and executing sports partnership strategy across Cricket, Running, Football, Training, and priority Olympic sports; leading negotiations and securing high-impact commercial partnerships; managing the end-to-end partnership lifecycle; and leading, coaching, and developing the Sports Marketing team while collaborating with Brand Communications, Product, Commercial, Legal, Finance, and Global Sports Marketing. The role is based in Gurgaon, HR, IN.
What you’ll do
- Define adidas India's Sports Marketing strategy across priority sports and athlete portfolios.
- Build a balanced portfolio of federations, athletes, communities and sporting properties aligned with business priorities.
- Build and manage senior relationships with sports federations, athlete managers, agencies, leagues, rights holders and sporting communities.
- Lead negotiations and secure high-impact commercial partnerships.
- Own the end-to-end lifecycle of strategic partnerships—from identification and negotiation to activation, servicing and renewal.
- Develop annual Sports Marketing strategy aligned with business priorities.
- Manage relationships with BCCI, key federations, athlete agencies, managers and strategic ambassadors.
- Manage budgets, contracts, approvals and governance in partnership with Legal, Finance and Operations.
What you’ll bring
- 12–15 years' experience in Sports Marketing, Sponsorship, Sports Business or Brand Marketing.
- Strong network across sports federations, athlete managers, agencies and rights holders.
- Proven success negotiating and managing high-value partnerships.
- Strategic mindset with strong commercial acumen.
- Excellent leadership, stakeholder management and project management skills.
- Passion for sport, with strong understanding of the Indian sporting landscape.