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 razor-sharp, unflappable Technical Director to spearhead the technical execution of our new flagship daily live show. Sitting in "Seat 1" of the control room, you will be the absolute backbone of the broadcast, responsible for translating the Senior Producer's editorial cues into flawless, real-time on-screen action.
This is a highly technical, fast-paced role that requires instantaneous decision-making. You will operate the video switcher, manage multi-cam studio setups, route remote guest feeds, and oversee the health of the live stream from "fade up" to sign-off. The ideal candidate is a control room veteran who possesses a deep understanding of modern IP/digital streaming workflows and stays perfectly calm when breaking news forces an on-the-fly technical pivot.
Responsibilities
Live Switching & Execution: Physically operate the production switcher during the daily live broadcast, executing clean cuts and video effects instantly on the Senior Producer's call.
Control Room Setup & Workflow: Configure and maintain the control room architecture. Build and save custom macros, registers, and snapshots to ensure the daily look of the show is consistent and easily retrievable.
Signal & Feed Management: Manage all incoming and outgoing signals. Coordinate the seamless integration of remote guests via Zoom, etc, ensuring low-latency video and mix-minus audio are locked before going live.
Technical Quality Control: Monitor video and audio levels throughout the broadcast to ensure compliance with premium streaming standards. Act as the primary gatekeeper against frame drops, stream lag, or audio syncing issues.
Equipment Oversight & Maintenance: Oversee the studio’s physical technical infrastructure, including robotic cameras (PTZ), lighting grids, encoders, and hardware/software updates.
Crisis Troubleshooting: Diagnose and resolve technical failures (e.g., dropped remote feeds, frozen graphics engines, signal loss) mid-broadcast without interrupting the viewer experience.
Post-Show Archive: Manage the master recording configuration, ensuring clean and dirty cuts of the broadcast are properly encoded, archived, and handed off to the post-production and social teams.
Requirements
5+ Years of Live TD Experience: A proven track record of switching daily, fast-paced live programming (sports, news, or high-volume talk formats).
Hardware & Software Mastery: Deep technical fluency with industry-standard switchers and streaming platforms—specifically vMix, NewTek TriCaster, Ross Carbonite, or Blackmagic ATEM systems.
IP Video & Protocols: Expert knowledge of modern video transport workflows, including NDI, SRT, RTMP, and traditional SDI workflows.
The "Live" Mindset: Exceptional reaction time and spatial awareness. You can listen to the producer in your ear, watch 10 monitor screens at once, and punch the next shot perfectly on beat.
Problem Solver under Pressure: A proactive troubleshooter who always has a "Plan B" (and Plan C) mapped out in the routing switcher if a piece of gear fails mid-show.
Team Collaborator: Ability to work seamlessly alongside the Audio Engineer, Graphics Producer, and Associate Producer to create a synchronized, ego-free control room environment.
