This is an account of youthful exuberance teaming up with passion, hard work and a dream of transforming the Indian sports, primarily grassroots football.
Hemant Sharma
The success story of Hemant Sharma, the co- founder of IT MAGIA along with his co-founder partner Arpit Gupta and partner Actor, Splits villa and MTV Roadies host Rannvijay Singha, is quite remarkable. Working towards building a strong foundation for a harmonious ecosystem of sports for nation’s kids, youth and adults, Hemant has come a long way from taking his love for the beautiful game (Football) and finally converting it into a smoothly running sports and events management business.
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Over the short span of 6 years through his venture, he moved further to work on an array of tournaments and leagues in the country on varied levels and sectors such as corporate, grassroots, embassies and many more. The Legends Cup, earlier called Federation Cup which started with just 16 teams in 2012, is today the India’s largest corporate football tournament with more than 400 teams participating over a period of 2 days in over 6 states and more than 15 cities.
IT Magia today has worked with over 2500 corporates around India which include the likes of Deloitte, Ernst & Young, adidas, Red Bull, Budweiser, Huawei to name a few. They hold a place in Limca Book of Records for Organising the largest football corporate tournament in India, and proudly call themselves the creators of first ever semi-professional football league in India, Creators Premier League. They also established something called as StreetBall to enhance the basketball experience in the country. It soon became a rage and was touted as one of the best basketball amateur tournament in the country.
Hailing from a traditional air force family, Hemant Sharma always enjoyed sports preferably cricket, only to find his passion in football at the age of 13 when his family moved to Thailand. The journey that started during his teenage days with a simple aim to do something for all sports enthusiasts, turned into an advent of something new back in India at the age of 19. Life took him from being a captain of college football team at Delhi University to an organiser of his first corporate football event called the Federation Cup.
ITMagia has also become a pioneer in football Infra in the city, with currently running more than 11 football centres in the city to promote and develop football. They were the first to launch adidas The Base in the country which was considered the Mecca of Football. From international coaches to training programs, the vision of ITMagia is to develop grassroots football and one day to see India team play in the World Cup.
Being well travelled due to his father’s air force job, Hemant had experienced diverse landscapes and cultures, different views and expressions, which contributed in shaping his open-minded personality and a desire to establish himself as an entrepreneur.
Thankful to his inspirations i.e his parents, for providing him a life full of opportunities, he as an entrepreneur also envisioned to build a platform that established and facilitated a harmonious ecosystem of sports for the country’s kids, youth and adults.
He combined his passion of sports with his entrepreneurial mind to initiate IT Magia along with his two partners.
“It all began with a clear idea to promote football, which is a team building sport, in a country driven by cricket. Corporates who rarely get time for physical activities from their busy schedules, could now get some time out while playing together as a team. I am thankful to my partner and brother, Arpit to have shared the same vision or else this would not have been possible”- Hemant Sharma.
Hemant aims to grow further and connect the unconventional league format with more sports in years to come. That is the next big target and going by his track record, it's a sure shot thing to happen, in the near future.
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