Sports Business Strategist

About the Role

DPL is seeking an analytical and consultative Sports Business Strategist to join our team in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. This full-time role focuses on the intersection of data, sport, and commercial performance, requiring a strategic mindset with a strong understanding of business outcomes in the sports and entertainment sector. The strategist will primarily work on major sports and entertainment developments across the Kingdom, assessing, designing, and reshaping sports assets and their associated digital, commercial, and operating models.

Key Responsibilities

• Sports Data and Business Use Cases: Lead initiatives in fan engagement, crowd analytics, and athlete performance to convert data into measurable business results. Map data flow across physical venues and digital platforms, and build operating models for scalable 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/athlete journeys. Compare against global venues to identify gaps and commercial opportunities, delivering clear recommendations.
• Experience and Business Design: Contribute to designing technology-enabled experiences for fans, athletes, staff, partners, and tenants, alongside the underlying business models (ticketing, hospitality, sponsorship, retail, F&B, media, memberships, data monetization). Build and stress-test business cases and ROI narratives for digital ecosystems and new commercial assets.
• Pre-sales and Strategic Advisory: Develop sports and venue content for proposals, tender responses, and executive workshops. Run discovery and strategy workshops with senior client stakeholders, shaping briefs into scoped engagements. Serve as an industry voice alongside solution architects and delivery teams.
• Innovation and Thought Leadership: Assess emerging venue and sports technology, including smart buildings, connectivity, access, identity, immersive media, performance analytics, and AI agents, translating findings into practical proposals. Represent the practice with clients, partners, and at industry events.

Required Experience and Skills

• A strategic, analytical, and consultative mindset, with technical understanding to challenge designs while maintaining focus on business outcomes.
• At least 7 years of experience in sports and/or live entertainment, demonstrating a firm grasp of how venues, clubs, leagues, and operators generate revenue, manage events, and engage with fans and athletes.
• Hands-on involvement in designing or evaluating the technology and commercial experience of a large entertainment asset (*, stadium, arena, performance center, theme park).
• Technical fluency gained from the business side, with sufficient exposure to engineering and product teams to understand architectures, data platforms, integration, connectivity, and vendor ecosystems. This is not an engineering role.
• Proven client-facing experience in shaping solutions, including writing proposals, leading workshops, building business cases, and presenting to C-level audiences.
• Ability to design scalable operating models from initial concepts.
• Excellent written and spoken English, with the ability to produce executive-standard documents and presentations.
• Right to work in Saudi Arabia and willingness to be based onsite in Riyadh for the duration of the engagement.

Desirable Qualifications

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

Candidate Profile

This role is suitable for professionals with backgrounds such as technical account managers, solution strategists, forward-deployed strategists, solutions consultants, or customer strategy leads at technology firms serving sports, venues, or live entertainment. It also fits product or engineering professionals who have transitioned into commercial or strategy roles within sports or entertainment, as well as strategy, innovation, or digital leaders at clubs, leagues, federations, venue operators, venue architects, or entertainment developers. This position is not intended for pure engineers or architects lacking commercial and industry understanding, nor for sports marketing or commercial professionals who are uncomfortable with technical details.