Associate Director, Sports & Live

About WPP Media

WPP is the trusted growth partner for the world’s leading brands. With exceptional talent, trusted data and intelligence, and world-class partnerships - all united by ourpioneeringagentic marketing platform, WPP Open - we help clients navigate change, capture opportunity, and deliver transformational growth.

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At WPP Media, we believe in the power of our culture and our people.

It’swhat elevates us to deliver exceptional experiences for both our clients and each other. In this role, it will be critical to embrace WPP and WPP Media’s shared core values:

• Be Extraordinary by Leading Collectively to Inspire Transformational Creativity.

• Create an Open environment by Balancing People and Client Experiences by Cultivating Trust.

• Lead Optimistically by Championing Growth and Development to Mobilize the Enterprise.

As an Associate Director, Sports Sponsorship at WPP Media, you will play a pivotal leadership role in developing and delivering integrated sports partnership strategies for Mazda. You will translate Mazda’s business, brand, and audience priorities into distinctive sponsorship platforms and activation programs that build meaningful connections with consumers, strengthen brand relevance, and generate measurable impact.

Serving as a senior day-to-day client and partner lead, you will guide sponsorship programs from strategic development and opportunity assessment through negotiation, activation, measurement, and optimization. You will collaborate closely with senior Mazda stakeholders, internal WPP Media teams, agency partners, sports properties, rights holders, talent representatives, and vendors to ensure sponsorship initiatives are strategically sound, creatively compelling, operationally excellent, and fully integrated into Mazda’s broader marketing approach.

This role requires an informed perspective on the evolving sports and entertainment landscape, a strong command of partnership strategy and activation, and the ability to lead complex work streams with confidence. The ideal candidate is a collaborative, solutions-oriented leader who can connect fan passions to business objectives, influence senior stakeholders, and inspire teams to deliver breakthrough work.

• Lead the development of integrated sports sponsorship strategies and activation recommendations that advance Mazda’s business objectives, brand positioning, audience priorities, and broader marketing strategy.
• Translate consumer, cultural, competitive, and marketplace insights into clear points of view and actionable partnership opportunities.
• Assess potential sponsorship properties, platforms, leagues, teams, events, talent, and emerging sports opportunities based on strategic fit, audience relevance, activation potential, and anticipated business value.
• Develop business cases, investment recommendations, and sponsorship narratives that clearly articulate the role and value of sports within Mazda’s integrated marketing ecosystem.
• Lead structured brainstorms and cross-agency working sessions to generate original ideas, scalable activation platforms, and innovative fan experiences.
• Maintain a current understanding of the sports marketplace, including evolving fan behaviors, media consumption, cultural trends, new technologies, and changes within the rights-holder landscape.
• Build and maintain strong relationships with leagues, teams, properties,…