Hey guys,
Each week, we are having a chat to one of our SportsGrad Method Program members who is now working in their dream job in sport.
This week, features Mason Torney, Essendon Football Club’s newest Business Development Executive, in the Corporate Partnerships Team.
You might have already seen some of the content about Mason and his new job at Essendon on socials. But we’ve got the full story below.
Helping people like Mason live their dream is why we do what we do at SportsGrad.
Which is why I knew had to be there for Mason’s first ANZAC Day match as an employee of the AFL industry, after attending as a Bombers fan for 11 years in a row.
A proper full circle moment for us both.
ANZAC Day game 2026 at the MCG. Eleven years in the stands.
This year working for the Bombers.
Finally, if you’re already thinking about joining the program the June intake is starting to fill up with just 13 spots left. Click here to apply for the SportsGrad Method Program.
So have a read, and enjoy the inspiration Mason’s story represents.
And if you’re interested finally going after the career you always dreamed of… apply for the program, book a call with one of the team, and get excited about the career that’s in front of you if you want it.
Go get em.
-Reuben
Founder
Want to go from ‘overlooked’ in the sport job market to ‘in-demand’ like Mason?
Next Wednesday 27 May @ 12–1pm, I'm running a free live workshop:
How to go from 'overlooked' to 'in-demand' in sport
Mason's story is a perfect example of what happens when you stop applying and start doing things differently. In this session I'll show you exactly what that looks like. The same playbook Mason used to go from zero contacts in sport to getting called by Essendon before he'd even applied.
We'll cover why your applications aren't landing, how people are getting hired without ever publicly applying, and the exact process we use to get people into sport, as fast as possible.
It’s just one hour, and if Mason's story resonated with you, joining this webinar is the logical next step.
How Mason Torney went from $60 million in real estate sales over 6.5 years, with zero connections or experience in sport, to working at the footy club he's followed passionately his whole life.
Mason, Reuben, and Tia with CEO of the AFL Andrew Dillion, at the Amazon Prime Video Doco opening night screening of “Final Series“ at the MCG.
A Bomber from the very beginning
Mason is from Bacchus Marsh, about an hour or so out of Melbourne, and grew up a huge fan of the Bombers. Each week, from a very young age, he went along religiously to the Essendon games at the MCG and Etihad (what is now ‘Marvel’ stadium) with his mum. It was their special thing. They'd grab their scarves and jump on the V/Line into the city, and find their spot in the stands to watch their beloved Dons.
Mason was twelve when his mum took him to his first open training at Windy Hill, hoping to meet his idol James Hird.
But after waiting for a while, Hirdy didn’t show.
Pretty flat and dejected, Mason and his mum headed back to their car. But as they crossed the road, a car pulled up beside them.
The window rolled down.
It was James Hird.
Not only did he stop for Mason and his mum, Hirdy signed Mason's jumper and took a photo with him. He made that kid’s entire 12 year old world in about thirty seconds flat.
That childhood moment with Hirdy is why I love this industry. Sport isn't just competition, it's connection, emotion and impact.
What to do after school? Sport was what Mason originally thought
After finishing school Mason knew he wanted to work in sport, so he did what a lot of people with that passion do and enrolled in a Bachelor of Business in Sport Management at Uni.
But, shortly after, a full time real estate job came up through his dad's network starting out as a Personal Assistant. And as a 19 year old who'd been travelling and working casually for $15 an hour, the opportunity to earn proper money felt very enticing.
Within a few moments, he’d gone from enrolling in a sport degree to pursue his passion, to deferring it and taking the real estate job.
As a 19 yr old, after travelling for a bit and working a casual job, the opportunity to work full time just seemed like the best option."
Mason the Real Estate guy
What followed that decision was six and a half years of really good sales results, and an absolutely booming career in real estate.
Mason started out at First National as a personal assistant, and progressed quickly to a Licensed Estate Agent winning First National’s VIC/TAS New Salesperson of the Year, all in his first year selling properties independently.
He grew his transaction volume every single year after that jumping from $12.3M in 2023 to $21M+ in 2025. He spoke at conferences nationally and internationally, and collected over 100 5-star reviews for his sales on realestate.com.au.
By every external measure, Mason was winning at his job. His real estate career was feeling good, and looking really good too.
But a few years in, his job stopped making him feel properly fulfilled.
“I started rocking up to work with very low motivation levels. My job used to give me a real buzz, I used to get hyped up. I'd sell a house and that would fire me up for the whole week. And then that just wasn't happening anymore. That's when I knew I was looking for something else.”
The SportsGrad world: in the background, Mason was tuning in
While working his real estate job, Mason had started listening to the SportsGrad podcast. On and off for about a year at that point, not obsessively, just in the background during commutes for work. The way you listen to something that keeps saying things you already half believe so you keep coming back.
Listening to the SportsGrad pod on my commutes sort of established the initial track. You get in the mindset that there's actually this other way.
He'd reached out to Reuben, and done some research on SportsGrad, and was seriously starting to think: what if this was my way back into my true passion sport?
But Mason was sitting on the fence.
Then in late 2025 he went along to a SportsGrad meetup in Melbourne, and right away Reuben came up, said hello, and introduced him to Nathan Perrone, a SportsGrad member who'd already made the move into sport. (Side note - Nath is now a host of the SportsGrad pod!)
"Reuben literally came up and introduced himself and then said, hey, this is Nathan, you should talk to him.
…That's when I felt really comfortable. That kind of finished the decision I was going to make."
In October 2025 last year, Mason finally bit the bullet and joined the SportsGrad Method Program.
How Mason came into the program
When he started the program, Mason had just 72 LinkedIn connections, and other than Reuben (and Nath who he’d just met at the meetup), zero connections in sport.
But within four or five weeks of joining the program, and applying all parts of the method that he was being taught he had amassed 500+ connections on LinkedIn.
"I was just connecting with as many people in the sport industry as I could on LinkedIn and then I was sending messages to people working in jobs I wanted to work in.
…I thought, if I'm paying the money to jump into SportsGrad, I really want to get the most out of this."
He took what felt like a calculated risk at the time, and before he started posting about sport on his LinkedIn, he blocked every single person from his office from getting a LinkedIn notification.
Applying the SportsGrad Headhunted method, his LinkedIn strategy was to post a series on commercial partnerships, each piece linking back to real estate. So that if his boss eventually found the posts there'd be a plausible explanation.
He posted on LinkedIn for three months straight.
And guess what? His boss? He ended up seeing the LinkedIn posts.
And he was totally fine about it.
Thursdays: Networking day
Mason had assigned every Thursday as his networking day. In eight or nine weeks of the program there was maybe one Thursday where he didn't have at least one coffee or call with someone in the sport industry.
His first ever coffee was with Brendan Chambers, Head of Commercial at the Collingwood Football Club. An hour and twenty minutes long. Brendan gave him his time, gave him great insights, and pointed him toward two other contacts. One at Melbourne, one at Essendon.
"Everyone who gave me their time, the fact that they were willing to do it in the first place was great, and they were really present in the actual moment as well."
One concept he posted on his LinkedIn was about Geelong Football Club, and their new Yeti sponsorship, and a tailgating experience idea outside GMHBA Stadium. The Head of Partnerships at Geelong gave it a celebrate reaction. So Mason sent her a DM that night.
A few weeks later he was at GMHBA having a coffee with her and the corporate sales manager.
“LinkedIn posts led to a reaction, led to a message, led to a coffee. If you do it enough, you're getting your post in front of the right people.”
The presentation nobody else was doing
One of the things that kept coming up in his SportsGrad program calls with Reuben was a simple question: How do you prove to a sport employer that you can actually sell?
Real estate and sport commercial sales are different worlds, so Mason needed to bridge that gap without anyone having to take him on, on his real estate experience and his word that he could do it in another industry, alone.
So he built a presentation.
Mason built a post campaign report of his own real estate career, with the front page showing that over the past four years he'd sold more than $60 million in residential property. He then put year on year transaction growth graphs, a full property sale case study, his 5-star review score, screenshots of his CRM pipeline, his community involvement, and a closing slide with a photo of him at the footy with his mum, telling the story of the kid who always wanted to be the one in the suit.
He used that presentation as his cover letter, which he presented in every interview in sport that he got.
In one interview at a big sporting club in Melbourne, the People and Culture Manager who'd previously been in AFL hiring for nearly a decade, told him she'd never seen anyone do anything like it before.
He didn't get that job. He was just pipped by an ex-player for that club.
"That's a bit of a tough opposition to go up against when you're going up against an ex-player for a job at their original club."
But he didn’t let that deter him.
He kept going at it.
The big moment that “came out of nowhere”
Back in October last year Mason had sent a cold LinkedIn message to the Senior Business Development Manager at the Essendon Football Club, and asked if he'd be willing to have a quick chat.
They jumped on a call together, and it was a super helpful chat, but Mason hung up thinking nothing major was likely to come of it.
So he kept on posting on LinkedIn through Christmas and into January of this year.
In February a job appeared on LinkedIn.
Business Development Executive, Essendon Football Club.
He read the job description and thought, wow, this actually ticks a lot of boxes, and it’s at my footy club??
An hour later, before he'd even applied, the same Senior BDM he’d had the call with messaged him on LinkedIn.
"Hey mate, don't know if you're still looking, but we've just had this role come up, I'd recommend you apply."
Mason didn’t need to be asked twice.
Not only did he apply right away, but he got the interview and did the presentation he’d been able to practice at those previous sport job interviews now a proper handful of times.
It all went really well, and he was invited back to the Hangar for a second round interview with Essendon’s Chief Commercial Officer.
A few days later, he was driving in the car with his girlfriend, when a call came through.
It was Essendon, and Mason could not believe what he was hearing.
He’d been offered the job at Essendon.
After a moment in the car with his girlfriend to get excited and have a quick debrief, Mason picked up his phone and knew that Reuben was the first person he wanted to call. Reuben answered.
“Reubs, I'm literally shaking right now, the Bombers have offered me a job.”
"It was important to let him [Reuben] know first. He and SportsGrad was of such high significance in getting the Essendon job."
What it's actually like working at Essendon
As of February this year Mason is now working in the commercial team at Essendon, working in corporate hospitality and premium experiences.
He runs the AFL Player Sponsorship Programme, manages the relationships between the club's player sponsors, facilitates captain's runs and Hangar visits and game day hosting. He's about to take on the AFLW Player Sponsorship Programme on top of that.
One of his first proper jobs in the role was to organise Sam Durham's player sponsors to visit the Hangar before his 100th game.
He got the sponsors set up and got them them out on the ground so they could spend some time with Sam, while making sure the whole thing ran smoothly.
It was a bit of a pinch myself moment.
Mason facilitating player a sponsor experience with Sam Durham at the Hangar.
Mason now shares a corridor with the footy department, and one of his Essendon footy idols Dustin Fletcher works in the admin space two days a week.
"I still don't feel like it's real. Eight weeks in and I'm behind glass, working with people who are just as passionate about the Bombers and sport as I am."
The big ANZAC Day game 2026. Bombers v Pies. Eleven years in the stands going to the game as a fan. This year, working the game with his team the Bombers.
Want to land a dream job in sport like Mason?
Mason joined the SportsGrad Method Program at the end of last year, and landed a job at Essendon FC in 3 months.
You can apply for the fastest path to a full time job in sport, the
SportsGrad Method Program here: sportsgrad.com.au/program.
Application only. Limited to 13 spots left for people starting in June.
What Mason would tell himself before he joined SportsGrad
Just do it. Take the leap. I didn't get a job in 14 days, but I got it in three months. There were points where I was thinking, when is this going to happen, is this all worth it?
..once I hit the goal, it was absolutely worth it.
