Director, Product Management - Sports Content

Company Description

At Nielsen, we are passionate about our work to power a better media future for all people by providing powerful insights that drive client decisions and deliver extraordinary results. Our talented, global workforce is dedicated to capturing audience engagement with content - wherever and whenever it’s consumed. Together, we are proudly rooted in our deep legacy as we stand at the forefront of the media revolution. When you join Nielsen, you will join a dynamic team committed to excellence, perseverance, and the ambition to make an impact together. We champion you, because when you succeed, we do too. We enable your best to power our future.

Job Description

PRISM's sports module is the platform's most technically demanding and commercially high-velocity product surface. Unlike film or TV, sports data degrades in value within milliseconds. The platform must ingest live player tracking, biometrics, and broadcast telemetry — and return actionable intelligence for betting operators, broadcast networks, league front offices, and brand sponsors — in under 500 milliseconds.

The Director, Sports Content Product owns the full sports data and monetization stack: real-time orchestration infrastructure, advanced predictive analytics, fan LTV intelligence, AI-driven highlight generation, global rights compliance, and sponsorship ROI measurement. This is a platform-within-a-platform — with its own enterprise client relationships, distinct revenue lines, and complex multi-territory compliance obligations.

Speed is the product. Managing upward for routine architectural decisions is not viable in this context. The Director must have the authority, judgment, and technical depth to operate independently across a function where latency, compliance, and IP stakes are all simultaneously high.
 

Responsibilities

Real-Time Data Infrastructure

• Architect and operate high-throughput, low-latency data pipelines serving mission-critical sports betting operations — sustaining sub-500ms latency from live event data ingestion to actionable output delivery

• Own the platform's real-time data orchestration infrastructure, including live player tracking, biometric feeds, and broadcast telemetry ingestion at scale

• Define infrastructure standards, reliability requirements, and incident response protocols for a system where latency or failure has direct legal and financial consequences for clients

Predictive Analytics & Proprietary ML Models

• Build and own proprietary ML models including dynamic win probability, player impact metrics, and injury risk modeling — these become Nielsen IP and serve as the quantitative basis for media rights negotiations, athlete contract valuations, and betting market operations

• Own model accuracy standards, validation frameworks, and continuous improvement roadmaps for all predictive analytics products within the sports module

Fan Intelligence & Direct-to-Consumer Monetization

• Lead fan ID and LTV modeling infrastructure across all consumer touchpoints — building a first-party data asset driving PPV, premium merchandise, and event ticket revenue

• Define the fan conversion attribution framework, enabling statistically verified forecasting of paid subscriber conversion from sports content consumption

Rights Compliance & Distribution

• Own the global rights and distribution compliance engine governing geo-fencing, windowing, and exclusivity across multi-territory media rights agreements — with a 100% adherence, zero-leakage standard

• Partner with Legal and Rights teams to translate complex multi-territory agreements into enforceable platform enforcement logic

AI-Driven Content & Highlight Generation

• Own the AI-curated highlight generation product, with performance benchmarked against elite human editorial standards

• Define editorial quality standards and AI model selection criteria for real-time content curation

Sponsorship Analytics

• Develop sponsorship exposure analytics that enable major brands and agencies to measure, justify, and renew large-scale investments — with accuracy validated against independently audited market rates

• Own the sponsorship valuation methodology and ensure analytical credibility sufficient to command premium pricing

Client & Commercial Leadership

• Represent the sports module in enterprise client relationships with betting operators, broadcast networks, leagues, and brand sponsors at the most senior levels

• Partner with Sales and BD on revenue strategy, contract structure, and expansion within key sports accounts
 

How Success is Measured

• Latency to Actionable Insight: sustained sub-500ms performance — governs viability for sports betting clients (hig