Sports Business Strategist

About the Role
We are hiring an analytical, consultative Sports Business Strategist who works where data, sport, and commercial performance meet. This is not a purely technical position. You will understand how a stadium, a high-performance centre, or an entertainment district earns revenue, retains fans and athletes, and operates day-to-day. You will be able to hold a credible conversation with architects, product teams, and engineers about the technology behind it.
This role is pivotal in turning the ambition of a rights holder, operator, or developer into a combined business and technology blueprint, then pressure testing both until they stand up together.
You will primarily work on major sports and entertainment developments across the Kingdom, assessing, designing, and reshaping sports assets such as stadiums, arenas, training and performance centres, fan zones, and academies, along with the digital, commercial, and operating models around them.

Key Responsibilities

Sports Data and Business Use Cases

• Lead initiatives in fan engagement, crowd analytics, and athlete performance that convert data into measurable business results.
• Map how data flows across physical venues and digital platforms.
• Build the operating models needed to scale these solutions.

Asset Assessment and Due Diligence

• Lead or co-lead reviews of sports assets within entertainment districts and major developments, covering venue type, capacity, event mix, technology plan, operating model, revenue streams, and fan and athlete journeys.
• Compare against leading global venues and operators to spot gaps, over-specification, and missed commercial opportunities.
• Deliver clear, well-supported recommendations for developers, operators, and investors.

Experience and Business Design

• Contribute to designing the full technology-enabled experience for fans, athletes, staff, partners, and tenants, together with the business model behind it: ticketing, hospitality, sponsorship, retail, food and beverage, media, memberships, and data monetization.
• Build and stress test business cases and ROI narratives for digital ecosystems, unified data platforms, and new commercial assets.

Pre-sales and Strategic Advisory

• Own the sports and venue content in proposals, tender responses, and executive workshops for federations, leagues, clubs, operators, and developers.
• Run discovery and strategy workshops with senior client stakeholders, shaping open-ended briefs into scoped, sellable engagements.
• Serve as the industry voice alongside solution architects, product leads, and delivery teams.

Innovation and Thought Leadership

• Follow and assess emerging venue and sports technology, including smart buildings, connectivity, access and identity, immersive media, performance analytics, and AI agents, and turn it into practical proposals.
• Represent the practice with clients, partners such as architects, technology vendors, and governing bodies, and at industry events.

Required Experience and Skills

• Strategic, Analytical Mindset: Consultative and numbers driven, with enough technical understanding to challenge a design while keeping the focus on business outcomes.
• At least 7 years in sports and/or live entertainment, with a firm grasp of how venues, clubs, leagues, and operators earn revenue, run events, and look after fans and athletes.
• Hands-on involvement in designing or evaluating the technology and commercial experience of a large entertainment asset such as a stadium, arena, performance centre, theme park, cruise ship, convention centre, resort, or mixed-use district.
• Technical fluency gained from the business side: enough time alongside engineering and product teams to understand architectures, data platforms, integration, connectivity, and vendor ecosystems, and to recognize what is unrealistic or not worth pursuing. You do not need to be an engineer.
• Proven client-facing experience shaping solutions: writing proposals, leading workshops, building business cases, and presenting to C-level audiences.
• Ability to design scalable operating models from a blank page.
• Excellent written and spoken English, with confidence producing executive standard documents and presentations.
• Right to work, and willingness to be based onsite in Riyadh for the length of the engagement.

Backgrounds That Often Fit

• Technical account managers, solution strategists, forward deployed strategists, solutions consultants, or customer strategy leads at technology firms serving sports, venues, or live entertainment.
• Product or engineering professionals who have moved into commercial or strategy roles in sports, venues, or entertainment.
• Strategy, innovation, or digital leaders at clubs, leagues, federations, venue operators, venue architects, or entertainment developers.

Desirable

• Experience on large scale developments in the Gulf, or in delivering major events such as World Cups, Olympics, or continental tournaments.
• Familiarity with sports data platforms, ticketing and access ecosystems, sponsorship and fan engagement products, or smart venue infrastructure.
• Arabic and/or Spanish language ability.
• Consulting or professional services experience.

Who This Role Is Not For

• Pure engineers or architects without commercial and industry understanding.
• Sports marketing or commercial professionals who are uncomfortable with technical detail.
• Candidates who need a fully scoped brief before they can begin.