Media Relations & Digital PR Strategy

WORK OPTION:
The NBA currently provides eligible employees the option of working remotely one day per week.

• Cross-department media relations
• Experiential communications
• New media and emerging storytelling platforms

This role travels between ~10% of the year, depending on priorities.

• Serves as a media relations expert across all business communications functions, providing strategic counsel and identifying opportunities to elevate the league’s storytelling across business areas throughout the year.
• Manages proactive and reactive media outreach that supports key announcements, events and broader business initiatives across every business communications area, including media, partnership, international, team business, crisis and event communications.
• Cultivates and strengthens relationships with key reporters, editors and producers across business, media, tech, health, lifestyle and culture outlets to broaden the league’s storytelling reach.
• Identifies emerging cultural and news trends and recommends proactive PR opportunities that position the league and its executives as thought leaders.
• Supports the transformation of the PR group’s digital newsroom, driving a more agile, digital first approach to news creation, distribution, and amplification.
• Collaborates with internal content and production teams to develop multimedia elements that strengthen PR outputs, including short form videos, motion graphics, social first assets and other creative content that enhances distribution and visibility of business communications announcements.
• Manages business communications-related announcements and promotions across @NBAPR on X and leads business communications-related narrative amplification strategy across digital and creator ecosystems in collaboration with NBA’s social and digital teams.
• Builds and executes PR strategies that engage non-traditional outlets and emerging platforms, including podcasts, social platforms and creators, to elevate league announcements, initiatives and on-court storylines.
• Develops, maintains, and catalogues media relations materials across business areas.
• Manages PR plans, deliverables, and cross-functional coordination for tentpole events and large-scale communications initiatives.
• Leverages AI-enabled tools and workflows to enhance media targeting, campaign planning, content development and performance analysis
• Tracks and analyzes PR campaign performance, including the creation of media coverage reports across business announcements, using data, insights and AI-assisted analytics to identify opportunities for optimization and continuous improvement.

• Serves as the communications lead for all experiential PR opportunities to drive buzz and visibility for the league’s tentpole events.
• Identifies, develops and champions new experiential storytelling opportunities and fan-facing activations that generate buzz, create earned media opportunities and elevate the visibility of the NBA and its tentpole events
• Develops media engagement plans tied to experiential storytelling moments, securing national, local and lifestyle press to maximize visibility of activations.
• Coordinates cross functional planning with groups including Events, Marketing, Social and Digital Content and to ensure cohesive execution and maximized visibility.
• Measures impact of experiential initiatives through earned and social media coverage, reach and sentiment analysis.

• 7+ years of agency, in-house communications or journalism experience
• BA/BS required

• Proven track record of proactive media relations success, including pitching, media relationship management and securing impactful coverage.
• Strong written communication skills with the ability to produce executive level messaging and high-quality content under tight deadlines.
• Experience developing multimedia assets for PR use, with familiarity in video and graphic production processes.
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Cloud (InDesign, Photoshop and…