About Us
Powered by one of the largest global newsrooms in sports media, The Athletic brings sports fans the most comprehensive stories about the teams, sports and athletes they love. The Athletic’s newsroom of 500+ full-time staff delivers in-depth coverage of hundreds of professional and college teams across more than 47 North American markets and all 20 football clubs in the English Premier League, as well as many Championship clubs.
About the Role
The Athletic is seeking a sports-obsessed, data-driven Graphics Producer to shape the visual storytelling of our new daily live show. This role sits at the intersection of journalism, graphic design, and live control room execution.
You aren't just filling templates; you are an editorial thinker who knows how to turn complex sports data, advanced analytics, and breaking news into "thumb-stopping" on-screen visuals. Working closely with the Senior Producer and Associate Producer, you will build and execute the entire daily graphics package—including lower thirds, full-screens, real-time data trackers, and social media integrations. You thrive in high-pressure live environments and take pride in ensuring that every frame of the broadcast looks premium, accurate, and distinctively The Athletic.
Responsibilities
Visual Data Storytelling: Translate advanced sports analytics (e.g., EPA per play, expected goals, trade value charts) into clean, intuitive, and visually compelling on-screen graphics.
Daily Rundown Preparation: Review the daily show rundown and collaborate with producers to build out all necessary visual assets (insert graphics, quote boards, player comparisons, standings, and brackets) prior to air.
Live Control Room Execution: Act as the primary graphics operator (or coordinate directly with the technical director) during the live broadcast, triggering elements in real-time with flawless timing.
Breaking News Agility: Build custom graphics on the fly during live breaking news scenarios (e.g., major trades, manager firings, injury updates) under tight time constraints.
Brand Management: Ensure strict adherence to The Athletic and The New York Times visual brand guidelines, maintaining typography, color theory, and asset consistency across every episode.
System Workflow Optimization: Manage and organize the graphics playout system library. Streamline workflows between design templates (Adobe Creative Suite) and the live broadcast graphics engine.
Post-Show Asset Care: Package and hand off key graphics templates and elements to the Social Producer for immediate use in vertical video clips and social posts.
Requirements
5+ Years in Live Broadcast Graphics: Direct experience producing or operating graphics for live sports, news, or high-frequency studio talk shows.
Graphics Platform Expertise: Deep technical proficiency with industry-standard broadcast graphics engines (e.g., Ross Xpression, Vizrt, Chyron) or modern cloud-based live graphics systems (e.g., Singular.live, native vMix/OBS workflows).
Design Suite Mastery: Advanced skills in Adobe Creative Suite, specifically Photoshop, Illustrator, and After Effects (for making quick changes to motion templates).
The Athletic-Level Sports Fluency: You must deeply understand sports culture and advanced metrics. You should instantly know the visual difference between a standard box score and a next-gen analytics chart.
Hawk-Eyed Attention to Detail: An absolute zero-tolerance policy for typos, misspelled player names, or incorrect logos. You check your work twice before it ever hits a screen.
Calm Under Fire: The ability to take a producer's frantic direction via headset during a live show and turn around a clean graphic in under 60 seconds.