Indiana Pacers Basketball Analytics Intern - Spring 2027 at Pacers Sports & Entertainment in Indianapolis, IN

Job description

• Pacers Sports & Entertainment is seeking a Basketball Analytics Intern who will work directly with the Indiana Pacers analytics team in support of the front office, training staff, and coaching staff. The overall focus will be on helping improve existing data science and data engineering projects, developing new tools, and maintaining current analytics infrastructure. Experience in sports is not required, but applicants should be passionate about basketball and the data industry.

Responsibilities

• Develop internal software tools for use by the front office and coaching staff, including but not limited to new reports, predictive models, or data engineering pipelines.
• Gather, clean, store, manage, and integrate data from a variety of sources.
• Assist in the creation of both standardized reports and ad-hoc analyses.
• Maintain and extend our existing analytics infrastructure.
• Innovate across all aspects of basketball operations including coaching, scouting, and performance analytics.
• Communicate results to the basketball operations staff through presentations, written reports, and tools.
• Assist with compiling statistics/data and reporting for the Indiana Pacers and Noblesville Boom.
• Collaborate on team projects and work autonomously on individual work.
• Assisting with game night responsibilities as needed.
• Other duties and projects as assigned.

Requirements

• Enrolled in a college or university program as a junior, senior, or graduate student.
• Demonstrated data programming experience (Python and SQL) either in data science, data engineering, or data analysis.
• Proficient in Microsoft Office applications (Excel, Word, PowerBI).
• Strong organizational skills with a robust attention to detail in regards both to checking data and visual presentation of deliverables.
• Excellent communication skills and a desire to learn more both about the basketball industry and data analytics’ impact on the game.
• Highly motivated and dependable.
• Strong knowledge of Microsoft Office, Python, as well as the ability to a learn and utilize new computer programs quickly and efficiently.
• Interest in basketball and familiarity with basketball terminology and analytics is a plus.
• Basic knowledge of version control systems like Git.
• Experience with statistical analysis and machine learning techniques (eg, regression/modeling, clustering, hypothesis testing, categorical data analysis), commonly used statistics packages in R or Python, data visualization, and data collection methods.
• Experience in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript for creating responsive and interactive user interfaces.
• Familiarity with AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude) and an interest in applying LLMs to streamline research and analysis

Skills

Required

• Python
• SQL
• Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, PowerBI)
• Strong organizational skills
• Attention to detail
• Excellent communication skills
• Highly motivated and dependable

Preferred

• Git
• R or Python statistics packages
• Data visualization
• Data collection methods
• HTML, CSS, JavaScript
• AI tools (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude)