The planned portfolio includes the Bachelor and Master of Physical Education and Sports, Bachelor and Master of Sports Management, and Bachelor in Sports Analytics programmes. Degrees will be awarded by Mind Power University, while Sportal will work as the industry partner responsible for designing and helping deliver the programmes by giving industry exposure to students.
Students will be introduced to its use in areas such as athlete performance analysis, coaching, sports analytics, digital marketing and sports business, reflecting the way technology is increasingly being used across the industry.
Why the Timing Matters
The launch comes as India prepares to host the 2030 Commonwealth Games in Ahmedabad and pursues its bid for the 2036 Olympic Games. Events of this scale need far more than athletes. They depend on trained event managers, performance analysts, sport scientists, coaches and sports marketers, many of whom are already in short supply.
“If India wants to host the Olympics, it also needs the professionals who can run, analyse and market world-class sport,” said Dr. Gaurav Pant. “That workforce has to be trained now, not in 2035.”
Taking Sports Education Closer to the Industry
For Dr. Gaurav Pant, Founder and Managing Director of Sportal Corporate Pvt. Ltd., the new campus is an extension of work that began more than a decade ago.
Gaurav, who holds a PhD in Sports and an MBA in Marketing, started Sportal in 2013. The initial objective was to address a gap he had repeatedly seen between academic sports education and the skills required once students entered the industry.
That focus became even more pronounced in 2020, when Sportal moved its learning programmes online. By 2021, the company says its courses had reached more than 2,500 students across 24 countries. It has since trained over 4,700 professionals.
At Nainital Sportal Impact Campus, the emphasis will again be on putting classroom learning alongside actual industry exposure.
The programmes are being designed around practitioner-led teaching and work-integrated learning, with internships becoming an important part of the curriculum from Semester 4 onwards. Students will also receive exposure to areas such as performance analysis, sports marketing, analytics, and organizing and management of leagues.
How AI Is Built Into the Sports Education Curriculum
Rather than offering AI as a separate short-term certificate, Sportal is building it into the core course structure.
Where AI Fits Into a Sports Career
For Dr Gaurav Pant, the argument for including AI is practical.
Sports professionals today are increasingly expected to work with information that was once handled almost entirely through observation and experience. Performance data can help coaches understand an athlete better, analytics can influence sporting and business decisions, and digital tools now play a significant role in marketing, fan engagement and event operations.
That does not mean removing the human side of sport.
Instead, Sportal Corporate wants students to understand how these tools can support the work of coaches, physical educators, analysts and sports managers rather than encountering them for the first time after entering the workforce.
The programmes will follow a credit-based structure aligned with NEP 2020 and are intended for Indian as well as international students. Residential facilities will be available on campus.
Building From Thirteen Years in Sports Education
Sportal’s work over the years has extended beyond its own programmes.
The organisation has academic and institutional associations with LNIPE, Rashtriya Raksha University, Guru Ghasidas Vishwavidyalaya, JAIN (Deemed-to-be University) and Universitas Sumatera Utara in Indonesia. In 2025, Sportal received the Excellence in Sports & Physical Education recognition at the ArdorComm Education Leadership Summit in Dehradun.
Dr. Gaurav Pant has also worked on projects around physical literacy and teacher development, including the Human Performance Score™, which is designed as a rubric-based diagnostic for assessing physical literacy among students.
For Sportal Corporate, however, the Nainital initiative marks a more direct move into full-time sports education.
Admissions for the 2027 academic session are now being opened with the aim of attracting students looking at careers not only in coaching and physical education, but also in the increasingly specialised areas of sports business, analytics and technology.
As those roles continue to change, Sportal’s bet is that students entering the industry should learn both sides of it from the beginning: the sport itself, and the technology increasingly shaping how it is understood.
