Senior Editor - Wires (Global football + U.K. sports)

ABOUT YOUR NEW ROLE

Sporting News is searching for a senior editor to help launch and run day-to-day editorial operations for a new global football and U.K. sports vertical. This isn’t a traditional news desk assignment editor or copy-editing role. The ideal candidate thrives in ambiguity and possesses a business-savvy, entrepreneurial mindset with a primary focus on growing audience and driving revenue. 

Anchored around trending news and timely team-centric angles, SN’s Wires Network is dedicated to driving engaging conversations and in-depth coverage of the teams, athletes and moments that resonate most with fans. This role will predominantly focus on global football — all Premier League clubs plus other marquee sides with significant audience potential — with oversight over select U.K. sports including darts and boxing. 

You’ll manage a team of freelance writers and team experts incentivized to build an audience around passionate fanbases starved for club-specific content. From transfer rumors and pundit commentary to evergreen lists and manager turmoil, you’ll help drive engagement and debate around fan-friendly topics. Think supporter message boards, fan clubs and team blogs more so than traditional news recaps, match reports or live coverage.

You’ll workshop headlines and creative entry points with writers. You’ll strategize on content distribution to uncover every opportunity to surface stories. You’ll master SN’s best practices around SEO and Google Discover and coach up your writers to do the same. You’ll be empowered to think independently and make game-changing decisions from Day 1. 

If you’re a rabid football-obsessed and results-driven dot connector with an eagle eye for detail, we want to hear from you!

This role can be done remotely based out of the U.K., reporting into the GM, Wires Networks. 

HERE’S A BREAKDOWN OF WHAT YOU’LL (PRIMARILY) DO

• Drive audience growth and generate revenue across a network of individual contributors within SN’s Wires Network
• Actively contribute as daily liaison between U.K.-focused wires and SN global news operation, communicating output against developing news stories
• Promote, distribute and program wires stories to build audience via notifications, homepage placement, backlinks, newsletters and/or social media
• Oversee training and onboarding of individual contributors for Wires, ensuring adoption and adherence to SN’s best practices, guidelines and overall SN standards
• Line edit stories for accuracy, style and grammar as needed to comply with SN editorial guidelines
• Build upon trending news and social-friendly topics to pitch engaging entry points and story ideas across all wires groups and contributors
• Manage team of freelance writers and editors; Offer weekly feedback and ongoing coaching with emphasis on building top-line audience and topic authority
• Adhere to all established SEO and Google Discover guidelines and best practices
• Help develop innovative product enhancements to drive engagement and build audience
• Track performance against key metrics to inform ever-evolving affiliate content strategy

DO YOU HAVE THESE ESSENTIALS? 

• 3-5 years of digital sports media experience
• Expert-level knowledge of SEO tools and Google Discover best practices, and how to utilize them to shape content strategy 
• Sharp business and marketing acumen with keen understanding of how to grow audience
• Strong editing skills to improve a story and communicate why changes were made
• Comfortable working efficiently and independently in a fast-paced, high volume news environment 
• Sharp and creative news judgment instincts to discern interesting content from noise 
• Proven knowledge of global football with emphasis on Premier League and major clubs; Demonstrated eagerness to learn others outside your comfort zone 

NOT ESSENTIAL BUT GREAT IF YOU ALSO HAVE:

• College degree in journalism or a related communications field 
• Content marketing and/or social media marketing experience
• Experience people managing or leading a content production team

THE REWARDS:

• 25 days annual leave yearly entitlement
• Carry over 5 days of annual leave to Q1 the following year
• Birthday leave 
• Life Insurance - Death in service cover 
• Private Health Care
• Pension Salary Exchange

ABOUT SPORTING NEWS, THE COMPANY:

The underlying ethos of Sporting News is positivity and passion for sports. To help drive those tenets, we have three core objectives:

1. Create the best media experience for sports fans. Wherever you are in the world, whatever device you choose, we want Sporting News to offer the best fan experience possible through the creation of quality, interesting content.
2. Develop a work experience that people want to be part of. We want to identify talented, motivated staff who work hard, enjoy their job, support their team… and have fun while doing it.
3. Build a fantastic, growing business. We want to deliver for our brand and our partners while achieving our commercial goals, ultimately using our scale for good.

At Sporting News, we celebrate the diversity of our employees and our leadership. Sporting News is an equal opportunity employer, and all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, colour, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status or any other characteristic protected by law.

ABOUT SPORTING NEWS, THE BRAND:

One of the world’s most iconic sports brands, The Sporting News was founded in 1886 as a weekly U.S. newspaper. Later transitioning to a magazine, it became the dominant sports publication, acquiring nicknames like "The Nation's Oldest & Finest Sports Paper" and "The Bible of Baseball."

Sporting News is now a dynamic digital publisher offering a trusted perspective across multiple sports and topics all over the world. It features localised editions in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Australia, India, Japan, Spain, and Argentina, with more territories and languages across the world.

TIMELESS & CRAFTED. No publisher has the heritage of The Sporting News (TSN). Established in 1886, it became the essential source for baseball and boxing content.

IMAGINATIVE & SCALABLE. Fast forward to today, TSN now covers all major sports worldwide with 15 local editions, leveraging a global network that understands local market nuance.

RELIABLE & RELATABLE. With a historic, trusted brand and unprecedented local media knowledge, TSN will be the leading international sports portal for right holders, gaming partners, advertisers, broadcasters ... and most importantly, fans.

Acquired by an international investment group in 2021 with deep sports, media and gaming experience, TSN is poised to become the first truly global digital sports media platform business.

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Compensation£45,000/year