Spring 2023 Internship Highlights #1- Lucas Gonzalez-Rey

My name is Lucas Gonzalez-Rey, and I’m currently a sophomore studying Information Systems and Operations Management & Business Analytics at the Smith Business School. Last summer, I had the opportunity to work as a social media and videography intern for the Capitol Hoops Summer League. The Capitol Hoops Summer League is an offseason basketball league consisting of high school teams from Moco, PG county, and DC. The local teams play in a round-robin style tournament for a change to participate in the single-elimination playoffs, where the champion is declared. My internship was very rewarding because I had a valuable learning experience being placed into an industry I was unfamiliar with.

My internship involved covering basketball games occurring at a central location. Two games ran simultaneously, with 8 games in total playing each night. I was assigned to two teams with two main tasks: posting game updates to social media and producing highlight reel videos. Social media updates had to be posted in real-time, including scoring updates, notable plays, and a score sheet with player stats at halftime and fulltime. Meanwhile, highlight reel videos were to be published a couple hours after the game ended.

There was a great deal of creative freedom with the content posted online. During the planning process, my team decided to primarily post live game updates to Twitter and Instagram. For Twitter, we created threads and continue to add to them as the game went on. On Instagram, we filmed notable plays and directly added them onto the Capitol Hoops Summer League’s Instagram story. In addition to periodic game updates, we’d start up an Instagram livestream to cover close games. It was important to be mindful when making social media update posts. I had to make sure every time I made a social media update, I was tagging the correct players, coaches, and teams. Including relevant handles was not only important for increasing traffic for the basketball league, but to also increase exposure to these high school players looking to get recruited by colleges.

Videography was a bit different. While there was no rush to quickly post live updates, there was still the expectation to publish highlight reels in a timely manner. Every night, I was assigned one game to film entirely and then afterwards produce a highlight reel. While filming the games, I utilized different camera angles to best capture certain plays. I also occasionally panned to the scoreboard during major stops. After the game finished, I ordered all the raw footage and made various cuts and edits to assemble a summarized version of the game. I spent upwards of 6 hours at a time experimenting with the different transition presets and syncing music with the video clips.  Although it was very time consuming to sift through so much raw footage, I was very satisfied with each the five-to-ten-minute end products. Like the social media updates, I had to be mindful of what to include in the video to maximize views but also keep the videos monetized. Video descriptions included the time the game was played, the score result, and top scorers for each team. I also had to be careful with what music I used to keep the videos monetized.

Overall, I have learned a great deal about the sports industry and its culture from my internship. With social media being such an important aspect of society now, it becomes almost essential for athletes and sports organizations to grow their online presence. Although the skills I picked up may not directly translate into my future career, I still appreciate general insights on the sports industry. Without these opportunities, I would not have been able to learn how to effectively leverage social media marketing, or enjoyed learning a new, industry-grade software.