Hello, welcome to The Ultimate Guide to Jobs in Sport! 👋 

Here you’ll find interviews with (almost) every job in the sports industry.
We ask people living the dream:

“How did you get your job?” and “What does it actually involve?”
So that you can land a dream job in sports too.

Enjoy!

#347: Sport Marketing & Communications - How to work in AFL, NBA and Seven Sport with Anthony Alsop

He went from Coles and moonlighting as a tennis statistician to the Brisbane Lions, Richmond FC, Seven Sport and the NBA.

Meet Media & Comms executive, Anthony Alsop.

Anthony's career is littered with entrepreneurial ways to open the side door when the front door was shut. He's ranked AFL Twitter accounts to catch a CEO's eye, built his own digital platform, and walked into an interview with a 15-slide strategy deck before he was even hired.

He's also raised over $7 million for homelessness alongside Nedd Brockman!

If you're looking to use your corporate skills in a high-performance sports environment, this episode is for you.

🎙️Episode #347 of the SportsGrad Podcast - out now wherever you listen.

🔥 Quick Fire Questions

1. What inspired you to work in sport?

   It was the only thing I ever wanted to do growing up.

   There wasn't one singular event; it was a combination of events, from Gaze to Copeland alley-oops at a sold-out Rod Laver Arena, to seeing Kevin Sheedy wave his jacket. There was just a buzz I got from attending big sporting events. From watching to playing, sport took up the majority of my time!

2. What was your first ever sports-related role?

   Coaching grade 4 basketball in primary school as a grade 6 student. I got to run the same drills as I did in my training and got paid for it. What a gig.

3. After High School, what extra study did you do?

   I tried to switch my uni course to a sports management degree, but missed out because the course was full, so I decided to get real-world experience instead. That included serving as a court sweeper for the Melbourne Tigers and as a statistician at the Australian Open.

4. What's one interview question you like to ask of people you hire?

   I always like to ask why they're applying for the role. Now that may seem rudimentary, but with sport becoming so specialised these days, these questions can often separate the good candidates from the great. If they are there because the role is something they are incredibly passionate about and it happens to overlap with sport, I know that person will often be great at their role and often have longevity in the position. If they are there purely because of the logo of the employer, they don't often last long.

5. A book or podcast recommendation that's helped your career?

   Book: The Third Door.

6. If you could try another job in sport for a day, what would it be?

   Got to be CEO. All the issues that most people often hear about downstream are their everyday decisions, and those are the questions I love thinking about these days.

What exactly does your job involve?

In my most recent role, I was the GM of Basketball.com.au. Our mission was to elevate the game of Australian basketball in today's media landscape, tell the stories that weren't being told and elevate the ones that were. Running the business, I had my hands across a vartiety of initiatves including new partnerships with leagues such as NBA, NBL, WNBL, NZNBL, EuroLeague, etc, while also trying to get our content found as many ways as possible via media partnerships. Beyond that, we were trying to commercially grow the business as well as delivering great content run by a small nimble team, so I needed to help them out on the frontlines of content as well.

What are some of the responsibilities of your role?

A huge variety; content creation in terms of article of social media, new business development in the form of pitching new clients and then account management in working with our existing clients. Financials of a new business, so managing the P&L which then relates into the amount of content we can deliver via freelancers we have on deck. Then we might have a new initiative we can do some PR on for a brand, league or athlete. Being able to break news exclusively was always a buzz, so I was also helping the editorial direction on stories across the board.

What does your career journey look like?

It's a real hodge podge of moves. I've only ever replaced somebody once across my career, so it's often been one that has led to new and exciting roles, but those can often bring some downsides. My career started off in digital where I worked in those roles for Richmond Football Club, the NBA, and Channel 7, before moving into more media, marketing, and leadership roles at the Brisbane Lions, Melbourne Rebels, and Basketball.com.au and a few years in charity working as the CMO at We Are Mobilise, working alongside an incredible athlete ambassador in Nedd Brockmann where he helped raise $7m for the homeless during my time there as CMO and on the board.

What do you think makes it difficult to get a job in the sports industry?

The biggest thing now with trying to get a job into sport, is the specialisation. You used to be able to turn up and say I will do whatever you want, I am a jack of all trades, but team sports these days can be 9 figure businesses that are run as exactly that, a business, and require specialised skills. The ability for someone to turn up with a generalist degree and generalist skills are long gone, so you need to be able to turn up and say I am great at and incredibly passionate about 'X', and I want to do that here. Because there is a very real possibility you won't get that job so you need to be able to go back into the real world and continue that career, and hope that in the future the timing is right for you and the right job ad comes up and you get a second crack at it when you are incredible passionate, incredibly skilled, and have the runs on the board for that role.

How did you decide that this was the career path you wanted to take?

When I initially wanted to enter the sports industry, I didn't know what I wanted to do. I just knew I wanted to be in it, so defining a career path for me was the key to get into the industry. I had a passion for sports and technology, but had never thought about combining the two. Now, I am old... but this was circa 2010 and I was at a conference and saw a presentation on Shaq using Twitter, and it just sparked for me that that was my thing. I wanted to do this and make it my career. So my entry into sports was formed out of two passions that I didn't know could intersect for a career, until it did. And you know what, since then, my passions have changed, and fortunately, my career was able to change accordingly.

What impact has networking played in your career?

When I was trying to break into the industry, I simply knew nobody, so I had to force my way in, so when I got into a position where people wanted to speak to me for career learning or networking opportunities, I've always done it. When people have asked to spend a day with me at a game or catch up for a coffee, I think it's really important to say yes, so I was happy to be a mentor in the SportsGrad program. It's incredibly important to keep your network up. People talk about luck in this industry, right place right time, but that's often because the person has put the time in, and the timing has finally met the right opportunity.

When you landed your job, what do you think made you stand out?

I've often been able to fit the brief for the role, so as a result, you can't apply for all that many roles. When I worked for the NBA, I applied specifically for a role that focused on the international products that fans use, which are different to the ones that those in the US use. I turned up to my interviews being a product expert because I used it so much; that meant they needed to do less training of the employee and I could really hit the ground running. Similary when I moved to work for the Brisbane Lions, they wanted someone with media experience primarily in digital because there was a belief that traditional media was not focusing on the club at the time, so we needed to make our own media. And that's what we did, from bringing back the club's podcast, to a TV show for Channel 7 and documentary for Fox Footy, we made our own media for our fans who weren't getting it much elsewhere at the time.

What advice would you give to your younger-self to help them take action?

Say yes to as many things as you can. Turn up, physically turn up, be infront of people, have your name come up to hiring managers again and again. And don't be too embarressed to ask for feedback, as people more often that not will be willing to help you.

What’s your #1 ‘pinch me’ moment working in sport?

Playing on three different NBA courts, including the Warriors and Cavs courts during the 2015 NBA Finals.

What do you think your life would look like if you hadn't pursued a career in sport?

This is a great question. Before I cracked into the sports industry I was doing phone and then IT sales... so probably something in IT or technology, which definitely would have made me more money in hindsight!

Others you might like to learn from:

1. Account Manager | Gemba

2. Senior Marketing Executive | Crystal Palace FC

3. Head of Marketing & Comunications - Asia Pacific | SailGP