From digging through data to working for the World Cup, 57 students from the Rice Department of Sport Management completed internships in Fall 2025.
Internships are a key component of a Rice Sport Management education. They help students build their networks, receive professional feedback, and learn from valuable real-world experiences that help them stand out after graduation.
Internships also help Owls consider different career fields and even get their feet in the doors of hard-to-break-in-to organizations. In Fall 2025, Sport Management students interned in many fields—including partnership activation, marketing, operations, finance, recruiting, scouting, content creation, project management, and ticket sales—with organizations such as Rice Athletics, sports marketing and talent management agencies, fitness and rehab training facilities, sports apparel companies, sports investment firms, and professional sports teams.
Twenty of the interns were sophomores, and two were even freshmen at Rice. “It’s important to get our students experience early, so they can figure out what they’re interested in and start building connections and work experience,” says Clark Haptonstall, Ph.D., Chair of the Department of Sport Management. “Internships are a perfect way to try on different roles without a long-term commitment—and for many of our students, these internships often lead to job offers post-graduation.”
Several students interned in sports at the highest levels, such as Major League Baseball, the NFL Network, and the FIFA World Cup. With Houston hosting the World Cup this year, four Rice students landed internships with the sport’s biggest stage, working in community/human rights, corporate partnerships, operations, and volunteer recruiting.
“Because Rice is in such a major city that hosts many high-level sporting events, our students are able to take advantage of these opportunities,” Haptonstall says. “They have been tapped to work local events like the 2017 Super Bowl LI and the 2023 NCAA Final Four.”
Fourteen of the fall’s interns were Sport Analytics majors. Their internships focused on studying data on NFL players, sport performance, and sport business. Many of these interns did their work as part of the Rice Sport Analytics Team, a program that partners with Rice Athletics to provide student-driven data analysis to the university’s Division I athletics program. This fall’s analytics team worked on Rice baseball, basketball, football, and soccer.
“This partnership has been great for both sides,” Haptonstall says. “The coaches and their players benefit from the insights gleaned from the data, and our students get the chance to analyze real-world data for teams competing in the highest division of college athletics.”
But Sport Management interns contributed far more than analytics—more than 20 students interned with Rice Athletics in operations, compliance, finance, recruiting, scouting, business analytics, ticket sales, creative services, and donor relations.
“Our students don’t have to wait for graduation to do real work,” Haptonstall says. “With Division I athletics in their backyard and Houston at their doorstep, they’re primed to do meaningful work here at Rice.”
Meet some of our Fall 2025 interns:
Nathaniel Ascher ’26
Student Director of Baseball Analytics - Rice Baseball (Rice Sport Analytics Team)
Ascher led a team of 20 undergraduates in data analysis of scrimmages and games, oversaw statistical modeling projects and software, and collaborated with coaches on player development, scouting reports, and roster optimization. He says the most rewarding part of his experience was learning about baseball development directly from coaches and collaborating with them to use analytics to support team success.
Sergio Rojas ’26
Consulting Team Lead - Racing Club de Avellaneda
Rojas managed a student project aimed at enhancing Racing Club de Avellaneda’s match-day fan experience, guiding research and strategy to improve game-day operations and engagement. He also traveled to Buenos Aires in May to experience a match day firsthand!
Saahil Vohra ’27
Backend Developer Intern with Rice Applied Sports Science - Rice Athletics
Vohra worked closely with John DeWitt, Ph.D., Rice’s Director of Applied Sports Science, to strengthen Rice Athletics’ data infrastructure by building an automated system to collect and store athlete body composition data. An aspiring sports data scientist, he found it rewarding to merge software engineering with sports science to help Owl student-athletes train and recover.
Nathan Turman ’26
Business Development Intern - Veloci Running
Turman experienced the fast-paced startup life with Veloci Running, a running shoe company, where he took on many roles such as driving SEO and supporting expo sales to helping develop go-to-market strategies for new products. A highlight was a road trip to the Denver Marathon, where he saw firsthand the energy of building a brand from the ground up.
Kai Peiris ’27
Sports Partnerships and Events - Echelon
Peiris supported NRG’s corporate hospitality and partnerships team by assisting with event planning, suite hosting, ticket operations, digital board management, and post-game reporting for Texans home games. Peiris’s favorite part of the internship was hosting executives, partners, and guests in the NRG suite, seeing firsthand how strong relationships are built through high-level hospitality.
Dominique Ennis ’26
Creative Services Intern - Rice Athletics
Ennis created digital and social content for Rice Athletics, working on game-day photo and video coverage, social media posts, and media day production for basketball and volleyball. Her favorite memory was taking the lead during men’s basketball media day and seeing the team’s work featured on official Rice Athletics channels.
Molly Mohr Bruni ’15 is a freelance writer and editor and proud alumna of Rice University’s Department of Sport Management. You can find her at mollybruni.com.