Pune: In 2024, Sourjyendu Medda, 46, set up a company to make youth sports more structured and scalable. Today, over 1,300 kids use his platform, Sports For Life (SFL), and its services to improve their game. He holds a computer science engineering degree from NIT Jamshedpur and a gold medal-winning MBA from IIM Mumbai and has spent over 15 years in fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) organisations before founding DealShare, an e-commerce company that operates as an online grocery and daily essentials retailer.
Medda’s experience with sports for his child got him interested to launch the sports platform.
While sports have come into sharp focus with parents nurturing dreams of their children becoming a successful sportsperson, the challenge is that while demand has surged, the supply of structured, quality training programmes remains limited.
“Unlike professional sports, youth sports in India are largely unorganised and unstructured. Moreover, until recently, sports were not seen as a viable career path and often ignored. In the West, children are introduced to organised sporting programmes as early as four or five years old. When a child follows a structured sports programme, the chances of reaching the professional level increase significantly. In India, if a child excels despite the lack of facilities, they are noticed and picked up, but why should it be that way? Why can’t we have systems that create great sportspeople?” he said.
The firm began with Mumbai and Pune as its centres. “Pune has good infrastructure and a great sports culture so it was only natural to choose this city after Mumbai,” Medda said.
Building sports tech
“The more kids get structured training, the greater their chances of making it to professional sports,” said Medda, adding that “the problem is that grassroots sports in India remain fragmented, with limited structured programmes, inconsistent coaching quality, few progression pathways, and minimal technology integration. Parents struggle to track their child’s growth, while children face irregular and unstructured opportunities to train and compete.
“I wanted to bring scale, structure, and transparency, the same principles that drive high-growth consumer businesses, into grassroots sports. With certified coaching, structured tournaments, and technology, we designed a model that supports children, parents, and coaches equally.”
Drawing parallels to consumer tech, he said, “Look at food delivery apps, technology has given that industry a massive push. Similarly, I realised we needed technology that could help kids improve their game.”
To bring the vision to life, he hired a team of 15 tech experts. “We integrated training modules and student performance tracking into one app. Currently, we’re working on injury prevention,” he said.
Alongside technology, a structured curriculum and regular tournaments were critical. “We had to create detailed curricula that parents and kids could understand, while also ensuring that coaches received clear guidance on how to conduct sessions, with systems in place to ensure that these were followed consistently.”
Starting from scratch
Building a curriculum meant defining clear methodologies and standardising training practices. He said, “We built a three-tier system. First, we brought on board what we call mentor coaches, international-level coaches who have trained national teams and professional players. For football, we signed Heimir Hallgrímsson from Ireland; for tennis and other sports, similar partnerships are being developed. At the next level, we have head coaches, ex-international players like Yadwinder Singh for basketball, Deep Rambhiya for badminton, and Shyam Sundar for Chess. The mentors and head coaches develop the curriculum, which is reviewed by an expert, a seasoned sports management professional with experience in tailoring programmes for Indian children. Each sport has one head, multiple senior and junior coaches, and one curriculum expert. The plan is to have one mentor coach for every sport. Currently, we have one for football and are expanding to others.”
Structured tournaments
Structured tournaments form the next vital pillar of youth sports.
“Just as schools use exams to measure progress, sports need structured tournaments to gauge performance on a broader scale. These can’t be random or disorganised matches, they must be well-structured competitions that help children understand where they stand. Tournaments provide perspective and motivation. With certified coaching, structured tournaments, and technology, we have designed a model that supports children, parents, and coaches equally,” he said.
Financials
“Our major costs go into four areas. First, hiring and training professional coaches who can deliver a consistent curriculum. Second, securing and upgrading premium venues so families are assured of safety and quality. Third, maintaining our technology platforms, from the SFL App to 4K streaming, giving parents full transparency. Finally, organising large-scale tournaments, which involves logistics, referees, and operations. These investments make the ecosystem sustainable and trustworthy for families. We are a VC-backed company with reputed investors on our cap table. Last year, we raised $1.4 million in a seed round, and we plan to raise additional funds as the business scales.
“We plan to raise around $10 million over the next two years. The majority of this will go towards building sports infrastructure and technology and onboarding the best coaches across sports. Some investment will also go into strengthening SFL’s position as the leading youth sports brand in India,” he said, adding that SFL offers a full-pathway model, training, tournaments, technology, and parental visibility across multiple sports.
“While international brands often bring quality, they’re expensive and not suited to Indian realities. Our edge lies in being affordable, locally relevant, and scalable across cities.”
The future
Since April this year, SFL has onboarded 1,000 kids in Mumbai and 350 in Pune. The company plans to expand soon to Bengaluru and the NCR region.
Their revenue model is fee-based, with plans to begin broadcasting youth sports events, which could open up new advertising opportunities. “Broadcasting youth sports has tremendous potential, it can add a new dimension to grassroots sports. In the coming year, we’ll launch more academies in football, tennis, cricket, and other key sports, and host tournaments across 12 disciplines in both cities. By 2026, we aim to establish Bengaluru as a strong hub. By 2027, Mumbai and Pune should be fully profitable and Bengaluru sustainable, setting the stage for an NCR launch. From 2028 onwards, expansion will continue into other metros and Tier-1 cities through a franchise model for faster scale,” he said.
SFL has succeeded in bringing structure, technology, and scalability to youth sports. Whether this will lead to greater participation in professional sports? Only time will tell.
