Job Postings Paint Picture of Cal’s New Content Venture After Layoffs

Over the past several days, Cal has posted more than 20 new positions related to “Strawberry Creek Studios,” the athletic department’s new content creation venture. The job listings come two weeks after Cal’s athletic department reportedly informed employees that it would be laying off dozens of athletic department employees, virtually gutting both its marketing and communications departments. 

When Strawberry Creek Studios was announced on April 15, those affected by the layoffs were encouraged to apply to these roles. The postings, which suggest the Bears will invest well over $1 million worth of combined salaries for the new venture, provide insight into the Strawberry Creek Studios structure and future focus—as well as how the athletic department will handle other more traditional roles, like team communications. 

Strawberry Creek Studios will be divided into four sub-categories: a content studio itself, a gameday entertainment division, a “digital ecosystems” division, and a strategic communications group, according to a Google Document linked in a job posting on the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics’ website. A “large workforce” of students, freelancers, and interns will work across multiple arms of the department.

Cal appears to be the first major Division I athletic department to rid itself of traditional marketing and communications departments to replace it with a content creation-based venture.

“Strawberry Creek Studios is not a rebrand—it’s a complete redefinition of how we operate,” Co-Directors of Athletics Jenny Simon-O’Neill and Jay Larson said in a statement on April 15. (The line also reportedly used in the memo sent to employees notifying them of layoffs.) 

According to Cal’s official announcement, the new venture “will infuse more modern and innovative storytelling techniques while focusing on enhancing strategic partnerships with brands and alumni.” It continued: “Strawberry Creek Studios will also concentrate on ensuring the gameday and fan experience not only celebrates Cal’s teams, but its valued community of stakeholders.” Strawberry Creek Studio’s objectives include “student-athlete recruitment and retention, brand and revenue partnerships, and donor, season-ticket holder, fan and alumni engagement.” 

Salary ranges vary based on level of management and experience, per job postings, and are generally in line with the industry standard—suggesting the Bears aren’t implementing massive cost-cutting measures. The assistant athletic director leading the content studio could make between $93,000 and $123,000; the director of strategic and creative communications could make between $75,000 and $105,000. Lower level positions, like the associate director of gameday entertainment, list salaries between $65,000 and $95,000.

Of the sub-groups in Strawberry Creek Studios, the strategic communications team appears the most traditional with five director-level openings: two for football, one for each of the men’s and women’s basketball programs, and one in charge of Olympic sports comms. There is also an assistant director position, who will also oversee certain Olympic sports communications. The duties appear relatively similar to existing comms jobs, with a few notable additions: comms directors are tasked with liaising with “sports-specific influencers and content strategists” in addition to traditional media, conference, and NCAA officials.

Within the Strawberry Creek Studios umbrella will be a content studio—making Cal the latest athletic department to jump on the growing trend. It will consist of six employees to start, per job postings, including photographers, video directors, and other creatives. The assistant AD leading the department will be the “chief architect of the Cal Athletics brand,” tasked with overseeing “the overarching visual narrative across all platforms, driving essential goals like elite student-athlete recruitment, fan engagement, and revenue generation through brand partnerships,” per the listing.

Multiple employees will work under the “creative video” subcategory of the content studio specifically, while others will work under the graphics umbrella. Two associate directors of creative video will be hired—one to focus on men’s basketball and one to focus on women’s. 

The Bears will also invest heavily in what they call “gameday entertainment,” including five employees tasked with creating “end-to-end execution of live shows” and “high-stakes sponsorship activations and halftime programming,” including deep knowledge of technical production capabilities like operating and overseeing broadcast control rooms and instant-replay systems.

Finally, the venture will include a “digital ecosystems” sub-group, which will “oversee the health and growth of the entire digital ecosystem, including web, mobile, social, and AI initiatives, to attract elite recruits and premier corporate partners,” and act as a liaison across all the content departments. The department is hiring at least one position tasked specifically with defining how AI could assist the content efforts.

Neither of the two Cal employees listed as running the hiring process—associate AD for communications Jonathan Okanes and chief marketing officer Jason Hobar—responded to questions sent by Front Office Sports.