Basketball Applied Science Seasonal Intern

Basketball Applied Science Seasonal Intern

Remote

Remote

Job Summary:

Player 15 Group the sports & entertainment company behind the Phoenix Suns (NBA) Phoenix Mercury (WNBA) Valley Suns (G League) and PHX Arena is redefining the industry standard. Headquartered in downtown Phoenix and engaging fans across the world Player 15 Group is driven by possibility innovation and the desire to create memorable moments for our fans and community.

Our culture is anchored in purpose-driven leadership and fueled by individuals who bring passion creativity and vision to everything they do. We challenge convention amplify voices and create experiences that resonate well beyond the final buzzer. This is where talent meets purpose and bold ideas become reality.

We are seeking a motivated Basketball Applied Science Intern to join our Basketball Analytics team. Our mission is clear: transform complex data into actionable insights and cutting-edge analysis empowering the organization with a competitive edge that fuels our march to championships.

As an Applied Science Intern you will contribute to impactful analytics projects spanning the entire data workflow: from cleaning and feature engineering to modeling deployment and delivery of insights to basketball operations stakeholders. This is a seasonal (spring semester) internship position that will run from January through May 2026.

What You Will Do:

• Own an end-to-end project: define scope plan milestones and deliver actionable outcomes.
• Build and run analyses in Python/R/SQL from ingesting data and engineering features to training/evaluating models and delivering insights.
• Create visualizations and concise write-ups to communicate findings to non-technical partners.
• Query and model basketball data across multiple domains (tracking/spatiotemporal play-by-play events lineup/personnel etc.).
• Coordinate with Database and Software Engineering teams for integrations while maintaining ownership of project outcomes.
• Contribute to internal tools and ensure all work is documented clearly and reproducibly.
• Other duties as assigned.

What You Will Learn

• How to execute the end-to-end applied/data science workflow in a professional basketball environment.
• Best practices in experimental design model validation and reproducible research.
• How to collaborate with Database Engineering Software Engineering and front office stakeholders.
• Effective strategies for translating complex analyses into actionable decisions for basketball operations.

What We Need from Our Basketball Applied Science Intern:

• Strong skills in Python or R (pandas; comfort with scikit-learn; exposure to TensorFlow or PyTorch is a plus).
• Basic SQL proficiency.
• Foundational knowledge of statistics and machine learning (e.g. regression classification cross-validation metrics).
• Clear written and verbal communication; organized curious and proactive.
• Basketball knowledge and prior sports analytics experience (coursework clubs projects Kaggle etc.) are a plus.

Experience/ Education Requirements:

• Currently pursuing or recently graduated with a Bachelors Masters or PhD in a STEM field (Statistics Computer Science Applied Math Data Science or related).

What You Can Expect:

The work environment characteristics described here are representative of those that must be metto optimally perform the essential functions of this role. Reasonable accommodation may be made to enable individuals with disabilities to perform the essential functions.

• Must be able to carry on a conversation both on the phone and in-person.
• Ability to Read Write & Speak in English
• Perks:
  • Discounts at Fanatics Team Shop
  • Tickets available for Phoenix Suns and Phoenix Mercury games
• Visit ourCulturepage to learn more about our culture and work environment

Player 15 Group is committed to employing a diverse workforce. Qualified applicants will receive consideration without regard to race color religion sex national origin age sexual orientation gender identity gender expression veteran status or disability.

Please note this job description is not crafted to cover or contain a comprehensive listing of activities duties or responsibilities that are required of the employee for this job. Duties responsibilities and activities may change at any time with or without notice.

For questions about this career opportunity please contact the People & Culture Recruiting team at

Required Experience:

Intern