Community & Partnerships Manager - Football (UK)

About HYPES

HYPES is a new UK sports betting brand built around football - and, above all, around community. We are not building another odds board with a loyalty scheme bolted on. Our product is designed from the ground up so that betting happens inside small, real groups of fans: communities of up to 15 people, each with an owner, its own league, and a shared story that runs across the season. Status comes from prediction accuracy and contribution to your community - not from how much you stake.

HYPES is backed by Reazon Holdings, a Japanese technology group. We have applied to the Gambling Commission for an operating licence and are building the founding team ahead of full launch. You would be joining early enough to shape how the whole thing works.

About the role

Community is not a channel for us. It is the product.

This role owns both sides of it:

1. Outside - bringing communities in: existing football communities, creators, influencers and KOLs, supporters' groups, five-a-side leagues, FPL communities, podcasts and fan media.
2. Inside - making HYPES communities places people actually want to stay: the programmes, rituals and seasonal moments that keep a group of 15 fans alive from August to May.

You will be the person at HYPES who genuinely knows the UK football community landscape, and who is trusted inside it. This role will be reporting to the CMO.

What you'll do

1. Community growth & partnerships (outside)

• Map the UK football community landscape - creators, fan media, supporters' groups, grassroots leagues, FPL and prediction communities - and build the target list nobody else at HYPES can build.
• Own influencer / KOL relationships end to end: identification, outreach, commercial terms (with Legal), briefing, delivery, measurement and renewal.
• Design and run tie-ups, co-created content, events and matchday activations that bring whole groups to HYPES, not just individual sign-ups.
• Work with the CMO, the Marketing Leads and the Art Director so that community activity and the wider launch campaign are one thing, not two.
• Represent HYPES in the football community in person - at grounds, at events, in the rooms where these conversations actually happen.

2. Community activation (inside)

• Own the day-to-day life of HYPES communities: onboarding, seeding new communities so they never feel empty, matchday rituals, seasonal competitions and cross-community leagues.
• Build and run the community owner programme - recruit, train and support the people who run communities. Owner supply is the engine of our growth; this is yours to own and to put numbers against.
• Design recognition and status mechanics that are deliberately non-monetary (accuracy, contribution, consistency), working with Product and Compliance.
• Set the tone: community guidelines, moderation approach and escalation paths, with Customer Support and Compliance.
• Turn what you hear in communities into structured product feedback, and be the internal voice of the customer.

What you'll own

Area and Examples of what we'll measure together

• Owner supply: New community owners per week; time from creation to a full community
• Partnerships: Partnerships signed and live; players acquired per partnership; cost per acquired player vs. other channels
• Brand presence: Share of voice and sentiment inside target football communities
• Community health: Number of live communities above minimum density; fill rate; 90-day retention

About you

Essential

• Demonstrable experience building, growing or running communities of football fans - in a club, a league, an agency, a media brand, a fan platform, or something you built yourself.
• An existing network in UK football and a real feel for the culture: you know who the people are, which communities matter, and how they talk.
• A track record of working with creators, influencers or talent - from first approach through to delivered, measured activity.
• Comfortable being accountable for numbers, and equally comfortable doing the unglamorous hands-on work that produces them.
• A self-starter who can operate in a pre-launch business where the processes are still being written.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Right to work in the UK.
• Willing to work in a licensed gambling business and to take the responsibility that comes with it.

Nice to have

• Background in club, league or agency PR, fan engagement, membership or supporter services.
• Experience running communities on Discord, WhatsApp, Reddit or similar.
• Familiarity with FPL, prediction games or fantasy formats.
• Event or matchday activation experience.

Not required

• Gambling industry experience. We mean this. Understanding football fans is what matters here; the regulatory side we will teach you, with full training provided.

How we work

• Office-first. We are a small team building something complicated at speed, and we think that works best in a room together. Minimum three days a week in our Mayfair office; the rest is by agreement.
• Matchday rhythm. Some evenings and weekends will follow the fixture list. Time is given back.
• Short lines. You report to the CMO and will work directly with the COO, Product and Compliance. Decisions are made in days, not quarters.

Working in a regulated business

• Marketing and community work at a Gambling Commission–licensed operator is a regulated activity. Everything we publish sits under the LCCP, the CAP and BCAP codes and HYPES's own Marketing Policy and Procedure - including rules on who may appear in gambling content, how and where it may be targeted, and how partners and affiliates must be controlled. You will be trained and supported on all of it, and you will have Compliance alongside you rather than behind a gate.
• We are committed to safer gambling. Everyone at HYPES is expected to put customer protection ahead of short-term growth.

Equal opportunities

• HYPES is an equal opportunities employer. We welcome applications from everyone and make decisions on merit alone, without regard to age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, or sexual orientation. Tell us if you need any adjustment to the process and we will make it.

To apply

• Apply through LinkedIn with your CV. In place of a cover letter, tell us in a few lines about a football community you have been part of or helped build and what made it work.
• Due to the high volume of applications, we're only able to contact candidates selected for the next stage.