"We are building a unifying school sports platform to define the No. 1 school for sports in India" - SFA founder Rishikesh Joshi

Sports For All (SFA), a fully integrated digital plus on-ground tech-driven multi-sport platform, recently announced that it had joined the Khelo India Youth Games (KIYG) for a duration of five years to bolster the sports culture at the grassroots level. Through this strategic partnership, the SFA will invest Rs 12.5 crore over the next five years to develop India’s sporting DNA.

In the last few years, India has advanced steadily in the sports world. This enormous potential needs to be presented on a worldwide stage. The Khelo India program was launched with the goal of reviving India's grassroots sports culture, establishing the country as a great sporting nation, and creating a solid foundation for all major sports.

In a detailed discussion with Sportskeeda Business of Sports, the SFA's founder Rishikesh Joshi discussed their plans to support this ambitious mission of the Government and how it would contribute to making India a sporting powerhouse and a fit nation.

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SFA's journey, its association with Khelo India, and the vision ahead

Speaking about how Sports for All became a part of the Khelo India initiative and his vision behind it, Mr Joshi said:

“We have been looking at the Khelo India platform very closely since it started. The SFA Championships started in 2015, about 18 months before Khelo India started. And we realised that it completely resonated with our vision of letting Indian grassroot sports take the centre stage.”

The SFA Championships are tech-enabled, multi-discipline, regional sports tournaments that focus on school-level kids at an early age. They revolutionized school sports in India, enabling the ecosystem to nurture, monitor, and groom future champs from all over the country.

Commenting on how the SFA's planned Rs 12.5 crore investment into developing India's sporting DNA over the next five years will be used and what areas will be prioritized, Mr Joshi said:

“The funds will be completely channelized towards enhancing the experience of our athletes at the Khelo India games, strengthening the property, and making it come to the forefront. SFA will also scale up to multiple states of the country.”

Speaking about SFA’s idea of creating a roadmap for grassroots development of sports in India, Mr Joshi said:

“We are building a unifying school sports platform across the country to define the No. 1 school for sports in India. When we start defining it district to district, state to state, somewhere five years down the line we will very authentically make the claim that this is the No. 1 sports school in India. That's really the ambition with which we started.”

Further elaborating on the commercial viability of SFA’s mission, Mr Joshi added:

“Since 2015, we have faced multiple hardships to scale up the property, to onboard schools; the initial years were hard. But the fact that we have been able to sponsor the Khelo India games and have grown from strength to strength in the last seven years is testament that this industry can be commercially viable. Very humbly, I can say we are arguably the biggest sports startup of the country”

SFA has powered the digital and tech experience at the National Games 2022 and Khelo India Youth Games 2021, managing it end-to-end. As a testament to their commitment to empowering sports at the grassroots level, creating a culture that promotes and encourages participation, revamps infrastructure, and nurtures talent to turn them into future sporting stars, they organized 12 SFA Grassroots Championships.

Touching on the commercial viability, Mr Joshi said:

“If you look at the U.S., it is a $10 billion dollar grassroot economy. China is a $20 billion dollar economy. So if you see India and the rapid strides it has taken in last 10 years in sports, interest is being generated, focus is shifting, and slowly, money is incoming in the sector.”

Khelo India Youth Games 2023, the fifth edition of the flagship event under the Indian government’s Khelo India initiative, is being held from January 30 to February 11, 2023. 11 venues spread across eight cities in Madhya Pradesh and New Delhi will host the event.

Over 5,000 athletes representing the 36 states and Union Territories of India compete for 1,936 medals — 573 gold, 580 silver, and 783 bronze — in 27 sports at the Khelo India Youth Games 2023.

Speaking about the infrastructural changes that are necessary for India to become a sporting superpower, Mr Joshi said:

“I feel that soft infrastructure is the need of the hour. Sports science, sports professionals, sports nutrition, athlete managers, talent identification systems. Hard infrastructure was always there. But how well you utilize that paves the way for growth.”

Finishing on SFA’s future plans and ambitions, Mr Joshi said:

“To scale up for the next three years, take it to 50 districts across India, and have 10 million children for scouting at a click of a button. There is magic in that and that is what our entire energy will be focussed towards. A school sports league that India can be proud of.”

So far, SFA has reached out to 1,60,000 students from 3500 schools in its 12 Sports For All Championship editions across Mumbai, Hyderabad, Uttarakhand, Pune, and many more new venues.