City Football Group, which owns football teams including Manchester City FC and New York City Football Club, are looking to expand their esports presence, and is therefore hiring an esports manager, as advertised on the Manchester City website.
"The common aim across all clubs is to provide the best possible experience and an unrivalled opportunity for fans and communities to participate in, and benefit from, football at both a local and global level," the advertisement reads. "City Football Group prides itself on having a diverse family of employees who share a passion for beautiful football and a steadfast commitment to the local community. City people are innovative, collaborative and motivated by success."
"We are recruiting an experienced esports Manager to oversee City Football Group's esports department and be the direct point of contact for CFG's esports players. This is an exciting new role reporting to the Chief Marketing Officer. The esports Manager will line manage a team of esports players across the globe and communicate the team requirements to the wider business. They will be the primary point of contact between all esports operations and the rest of the business. The role is fixed term for 12 months."
The responsibilities for the job include player management, esports leadership, content creation, marketing activations, and commercialisation, but the job would ideally prefer someone who also has "a sound knowledge of all current and upcoming esports titles, esports policies and industry standards as well as knowledge of FIFA game title and all aspects of the game - both competitive and non-competitive play [...] They also need to be skilled in managing personnel, equipment, and financial resources."
It's no surprise that FIFA is the main focus of this advertisement, as that's the game that most football teams focus on when they make their way into esports (New York City FC just signed a FIFA player, for instance), but it's also good to know that they're asking for someone who knows all esports title, which could potentially mean they're considering expanding.
How big a deal is it for the City Football Group to be expanding like this?