Sports Content Creator Intern

SMASH RACKET — Sports Content Creator Intern — DC

Summer 2026 · DC-Based · In-Person

What Smash Racket is

We sell a tennis gear and we’re building a brand for the people who’ve always played on public courts. No country clubs. Tennis, Unclubbed.

The DC Court Report is our ground-level content series documenting the real DC tennis scene — the leagues, the players, the courts, the culture. You will build it from scratch.

What you’ll own

Research & sourcing

  • Find and catalog every recreational and competitive tennis league operating in DC (USTA DC leagues, DC DPR programs, DCTC, pickup communities, etc.)
  • Identify compelling players — not pros, not celebrities — real public court people with stories worth telling
  • Build and maintain a sourcing database: courts, contacts, leagues, leads

Field production

  • Film and photograph at courts — interviews, match footage, atmosphere, B-roll
  • Conduct on-camera and audio interviews with players, coaches, organizers
  • Capture the content that makes the DC Court Report feel real and not staged

Content pipeline

  • Write interview summaries, captions, and short-form copy aligned with Smash Racket’s voice
  • Organize and label all footage and photo assets using our naming conventions
  • Deliver edit-ready material for Reels, feed posts, and carousels

Brand alignment

  • Understand and apply the Smash Racket brand positioning in every piece of content
  • Know who our characters are and what the brand sounds like
  • Flag anything that looks too polished, too club, or too corporate

What we’re looking for

Someone who can walk up to a stranger on a tennis court, earn their trust in 90 seconds, and get them on camera saying something real.

Strong fit profiles:

  • Journalism or Communications — your interviewing instincts and storytelling instincts are the core skill here
  • Film or Media Production — if you can shoot and do a full edit, you’re immediately useful
  • Marketing or Advertising — if your program emphasizes brand and content strategy, this is applied work, not hypothetical

You do NOT need to be a tennis player, though it will be immensely useful if you do, can speak the language, and understand tennis culture and public court dynamics. You need to love talking to people and be comfortable on DC streets and public courts.

Practical requirements:

  • Based in DC for the summer (we are not relocating anyone)
  • Owns or has reliable access to a smartphone capable of filming (iPhone 12 or newer is fine)
  • Has own transportation or is comfortable navigating DC by Metro/bike to reach courts across the city
  • Available minimum 20 hours/week, with flexibility to film on weekday mornings/evenings and weekends when courts are active

Preferred

  • Background or coursework in journalism, communications, film/media, or marketing
  • Familiarity with DC's public tennis scene or recreational tennis culture
  • Experience shooting and editing short-form video (Reels, TikTok, YouTube Shorts)
  • Experience conducting interviews — on camera or otherwise

What you’ll produce

This is a pay-for-output role. You are not clocking hours — you are publishing content. Over the course of the summer, the expected output is:

  • 5–6 player profile Reels (45–60 seconds, shot at the player’s home court)
  • 10–12 standings and results graphics (weekly, Monday posting)
  • 5–6 match coverage Reels (raw footage, same-day or next-day)
  • 2–5 real-time moment posts (opportunistic — net cord winners, disputed calls, the thing that actually happened)
  • 1 completed sourcing database: DC public courts, league contacts, player leads, organizer relationships
  • 1 end-of-season recap Reel

Total: roughly 25–35 pieces of published content with your byline attached to a brand with a real aesthetic. Not spec work. Not a hypothetical brief. Actually published.

Compensation

We pay for output, not presence. Structure:

  • $500 base stipend for the summer
  • $25 per published player profile Reel
  • $15 per published match coverage Reel
  • $10 per published standings graphic
  • $20 per real-time moment post published
  • $100 one-time for delivering a complete, usable sourcing database

At full cadence, a productive summer totals approximately $1,000–1,200. The ceiling is real. So is the

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