Associate Manager, Business Affairs

Job Description

The Associate Manager, Business Affairs is a vital role on the Original Content team and will help to ensure that ESPN is always entering into smart, innovative, legally and financially sound partnerships and agreements.

This role will support the Director of Business Affairs with all aspects of structuring, negotiating and advising on a wide variety of business matters, including deals relating to the development, production and acquisition of original programming content. The role will have a variety of responsibilities including business term development, negotiation support as well as independent negotiation of smaller-scale vendor and production service agreements, industry research and supporting and advising internal stakeholders on the contents and parameters of our deals. The work will require collaboration across the ESPN organization (including Legal, Finance, Marketing, Production, PR and Affiliate Sales) throughout all stages of a deal for ESPN Films and ESPN+. Additional responsibilities include managing input of deal points to the internal rights tracking portal, representing the Business Affairs team to internal stakeholders and acting as an additional point of contact with production companies for business-related issues.

Responsibilities:
• Independently crafts deal points from the various business units communicating and championing best practices, taking the company's best interests into account for proposal to manager.
• Negotiate independently with outside vendors and negotiate with manager's oversight for smaller production company deals.
• Support manager in negotiations, including owning and negotiating certain aspects of agreement, reviewing drafts to confirm accuracy and clarity of deal points reflected in longform, etc.
• Conduct internal and external research on standard industry terms in emerging areas of business for the group (e.g., optioning) and present recommendations to the team.
• Draft summaries of recently closed deals and communicate key takeaways to appropriate stakeholders.
• Act as a representative for Business Affairs team different internal groups, including colleagues in sport category verticals.
• Help ensure efficiency of internal workflows.

Basic Qualifications:
• Minimum of 3 years of industry experience
• Possess high level of organizational and communication skills; both written and oral

Preferred Qualifications:
• Strong knowledge of ESPN's TV and Digital platforms.
• Knowledge and understanding of digital media initiatives, platforms, products and services (social networks, distribution models and platforms, etc.) and the entertainment industry generally.
• Strategic negotiating skills, both as individual and as part of a team.
• Ability to review/understand complex legal documents and translate them into actionable next steps for internal and external stakeholders.
• Production-related experience with features and packaged show content, including familiarity with industry terminology and storytelling methods.
• Proven ability to problem-solve.
• Excellent communication/interpersonal skills and experience with Executive-level communications.

Required Education
• Bachelor of Arts or Bachelor of Science degree.

Jobcode: Reference SBJ-rzn3o7-3-128-78-41-42 in your application.