Arena Marketing Intern

Hornets Sports & Entertainment (HSE) is a leading sports and entertainment organization dedicated to excellence both on and off the court. With new leadership and a strong strategic vision, HSE is focused on building a premier NBA franchise and delivering best-in-class experiences for fans, partners, and employees.

In addition to Charlotte Hornets basketball, Spectrum Center serves as a premier venue for concerts, family shows, and major sporting events. HSE is committed to positively impacting the Charlotte community by fostering connection, inclusion, and engagement through sports and live entertainment.

HSE is looking for an Arena Marketing Intern that is self-driven, creative, and an innovative thinker. They will collaborate in a cross functional environment to conduct market research, assist the arena marketing manager with promotions and activation strategies for the arena, and develop content for various social media platforms. The Arena Marketing Intern will rotate throughout the department in the areas of administrative coordination, event management, arena booking and arena marketing. Hours will include most arena events throughout the semester that may occur in the evenings and/or weekends, including Spectrum Center Events and Hornets games. 

This is a paid, in-person internship. Each intern will be paid $15.00 per hour, with the ability to work a minimum of 20 hours, maximum of 30 hours per week. The 2026-2027 season long program runs from September 7, 2026—April 23, 2027.

Core Values

HSE embodies the following core values:

• Integrity
• Teamwork
• Competitiveness
• Candor
• Accountability
• Resilience

HSE is an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. HSE does not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status, veteran status or disability status.

Essential Duties and Responsibilities

• Assist in daily operations of the Arena Marketing Department.
• Assist with pre-event and event day operations associated with all Spectrum Center events’ artist activations execution, media management.
• Assist with event marketing activations including planning, implementation, execution, tracking, etc.
• Responsible for conducting market research and generating reports to increase sales and brand awareness.
• Develop creative content for social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
• Research competitive market schedules aligned or in comparison to upcoming events.
• Development of Marketing Recap reporting requirements to determine ROI and overall effectiveness of arena marketing campaigns. Will assist heavily in the recap process for all events, i.e. collecting all ticketing, social, email, promotional data.
• Assist with hospitality needs for clients and executives.
• Perform any additional duties as assigned by manager.
• Participate in the full internship program, including workshops, speaker series, job shadowing and working on an intern project.

Required Skills, Experience and Abilities

To be successful in this position, you should demonstrate the following:

• Male collegiate basketball players must have exhausted their NCAA eligibility before participating in the HSE internship program.

• Ability to work 30 hours per week maximum.

• Passion for the Entertainment Industry and an understanding of Event Operations, Event Planning, Marketing and Public Relations.

• Strong understanding and knowledge of marketing, digital media, advertising, and promotions.

• Able to multi-task under time constraints, meet deadlines, work within a fast-paced concert industry environment and be very detail oriented.

• Excellent communication skills including written, verbal, and analytical and ability to present ideas clearly and concisely.

• Possess a strong ability to manage one’s own time and prioritize tasks when given clearly defined goals and objectives

• Able to maintain confidentiality and use discretion when privy to sensitive information

• Strong teamwork skills and the ability to manage individual projects

• Present and interact with all levels of the organization and outside contacts in a professional manner

• Be dependable and consistently arrive to work on time, follow instructions, and respond to manager’s instructions.

• Ability to work extended hours including nights, weekends, holidays.

• Proficient Computer skills, including Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook

• Problem Solving using creativity and organizational skills