Location: Banbury (on-site)
Hours: Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 5:00pm
Salary: Dependent on experience
Reports to: Directors
Head of Sports - Ace Grading
* Ace Grading is expanding its sports card category and we’re looking for a specialist to take ownership of the department as it scales. This is a senior category role for someone with deep sports card knowledge, strong authentication instincts, and the operational discipline to help build the most trusted sports grading product in the UK.
Role
* You’ll own the Sports category across grading consistency, authentication support, card/database accuracy, quality control, and category growth. You’ll work closely with our grading, operations, product, and marketing teams to make sure Ace’s sports output is accurate, consistent, commercially relevant, and trusted by collectors.
Responsibilities
* Lead Ace’s sports card category standards across grading, authentication, and database quality
* Support graders with sport-specific knowledge, references, edge cases, and card identification
* Improve sports card databasing: player names, sets, years, parallels, variants, teams, and metadata
* Build internal reference materials and training processes for sports cards
* Review sports submissions for accuracy, consistency, and category-specific risks
* Help shape quality control processes for sports cards as volume grows
* Advise on sports product positioning, collector expectations, and market trends
* Support sports-focused marketing, content, launches, and education
* Identify opportunities for Ace to grow credibility and market share in sports cards
Requirements
* Strong knowledge of sports cards, ideally across football, basketball, baseball, F1, UFC, and other major categories
* Excellent understanding of sets, parallels, rookies, inserts, autographs, patches, numbering, and common authentication risks
* High attention to detail - you care about accuracy, consistency, and getting the small things right
* Comfortable working with databases, spreadsheets, checklists, and reference systems
* Able to turn collector knowledge into repeatable processes for a team
* Strong communicator who can work across grading, ops, customer support, and marketing
* Commercial awareness of the sports card market and what collectors actually care about
Nice to have
* Experience in grading, authentication, card retail, breaking, auctions, or sports card content
* Knowledge of authentication issues, counterfeit risks, reprints, altered cards, and questionable releases
* Existing network or credibility within the sports card community
Why join Ace?
* Ace is the UK’s fastest-growing grading company, with a strong brand, modern product, and serious ambition across both TCG and sports cards. Sports is a major growth area for us. This role is about helping shape that category properly from the inside - setting the standard, improving trust, and building something collectors respect.
#J-18808-Ljbffr