POSITION 02  ·  INTERNSHIP  ·  SEPTEMBER 2026 COHORT

STRATEGY INTERN
Tonbara Sports & Entertainment × SponsorshipNext

TERM
September 14 – December 18, 2026 (14 weeks)

LOCATION
Hybrid

COMMITMENT
Full-time, 40 hours per week

COMPENSATION
For-credit academic placement, plus a $1,000/month stipend

REPORTS TO
Senior leadership across both businesses

APPLICATIONS CLOSE
Friday, August 21, 2026 — reviewed on a rolling basis

APPLY TO
hello@tonbarasports.com

ABOUT TONBARA

Tonbara Sports & Entertainment is a full-service athlete representation agency headquartered in Toronto, with offices in Miami, New York, and Los Angeles. We are licensed by FIFA, FIBA, the NBA, and the PWHLPA, and we represent athletes in soccer, basketball, hockey, football, track and field, and Olympic sports.

We call ourselves Career Architects because representation, done properly, is not transactional. Contracts are only one piece of it. The rest is positioning, brand, media, commercial partnerships, and the long arc of a career that outlasts the playing years. That is the work.

We are a small team. That is the point of this program — there is no layer of the business you are shielded from, and no work that disappears into a folder.

ABOUT SPONSORSHIPNEXT

SponsorshipNext is our brand partnerships arm. While Tonbara represents the talent, SponsorshipNext builds, values, and sells the sponsorship programs that teams and properties sit within — the other side of the same market.

The two businesses are deliberately close. The talent side sees what is happening on the ground before it shows up in a deal; the brand side knows what a category will actually pay. Most of the useful thinking in this company happens where those two pictures meet.

THE ROLE

This role spans both businesses. That is deliberate and the reason the job exists.

You will be the person holding both pictures at once: what the talent side sees and what the brand side needs to sell. Very few people get that view of the sponsorship market at any stage of their career, let alone at the start.

Expect research, competitive analysis and deck-building — plus the reasoning that turns those into a recommendation someone can act on. The research is the easy half. The hard half is the sentence at the end that says what we should do.

We would rather you show up with a clear argument and be wrong than show up with a summary and be safe.

WHAT YOU’LL DO

ACROSS BOTH BUSINESSES

  • Market and competitive research: category landscapes, benchmark deals, pricing, and emerging players

    •Build the decks and memos leadership uses to make decisions — real inputs, not practice work

    •Pull and structure data into something legible: performance reporting, campaign results, and pipeline metrics

    •Sit in on cross-functional calls and translate what you heard into next steps that someone can act on

TONBARA SIDE

  • Research into talent verticals, audience trends and roster gaps

    • Support with positioning and go-to-market for talent services and new offerings

SPONSORSHIPNEXT SIDE

  • Brand and category research to support live sponsorship pitches

    • Analysis of current and historical sponsorship deals — what was paid, what was delivered, and what actually worked

    • Support for proposal development and the valuation logic behind it

YOUR OWN PROJECT

  • One strategic question, assigned in month one and presented to leadership in month four. Real scope, real recommendation, real consequences if it is good.

WHAT YOU’LL GET OUT OF IT

  • A view of both the talent and brand sides of the sponsorship market — rare in a single term and rarer still this early

    •Ownership of a strategic question leadership genuinely wants answered

    •Direct mentorship from senior leadership, embedded in the work rather than in scheduled check-ins

    •Work you can show, not just describe

    •A working vocabulary for how sponsorship is priced and justified — something most people learn three years into a career

WHO WE’RE LOOKING FOR

  • Enrolled in a program in business, economics, sports management, marketing, or a related field

    • Strong analytical instincts — you can look at a spreadsheet and explain what it means, not just what it says

    • A clear writer. Most of this job is making complicated things legible

    • Comfortable with ambiguity and with switching contexts between two businesses in the same day

    • Interested in where sponsorship, creators, and media are heading — not just where they have been

NICE TO HAVE

  • Fluency in Excel or Sheets beyond the basics

    •Deck design sense — you notice when a slide is doing too much

    •Prior consulting, strategy, or agency experience

    •Familiarity with the sponsorship or sports marketing landscape

ELIGIBILITY

These are for-credit placements. To be eligible, you must be able to register this placement for academic credit through an approved co-op or internship program at your college or university. We will complete your school’s paperwork and adhere to its timelines — tell us your registration deadline in your application, and we will build around it.

You must be legally entitled to work in Canada for the duration of the term. This is a remote-first role based in Ontario; there is no relocation requirement or support.

HOW TO APPLY

Send your resume and a short note to hello@tonbarasports.com

Subject line: “Strategy Intern — [Your Name]”

In the note, answer one question in under 200 words:

THE QUESTION

Pick a sponsorship deal from the past year and tell us whether the brand overpaid. Argue a position.

We read this before the resume. We are not testing whether you agree with us — we are reading to see whether you can commit to a position and defend it with something other than vibes.

Please also confirm your program and your school’s placement registration deadline so we can work to it.
Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis and close on Friday, August 21, 2026. We may make an offer before the deadline, so earlier is better.

ACCESSIBILITY AND EQUAL OPPORTUNITY

Tonbara Sports & Entertainment is an equal opportunity employer. We welcome applications from candidates of all backgrounds and do not discriminate on the basis of race, ancestry, place of origin, colour, ethnic origin, citizenship, creed, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, age, marital status, family status, or disability.

Accommodation is available on request at every stage of the recruitment and selection process, in accordance with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act. If you need an accommodation to apply or interview, please indicate this in your email and we will arrange it. You do not need to disclose the reason.