Amitesh Shah on How LegaXy Is Navigating India’s Sportainment Shift

India is witnessing the emergence of a sportainment economy where athlete value is no longer defined solely by performance or seasons, but by sustained engagement across content, learning, and community. In this interview, Amitesh Shah, Founder and CEO of LegaXy, explains how this shift is reshaping athlete management in India, the growing importance of IP-led storytelling, and why building durable career pathways has become central to the future of sport.

1. India’s sports ecosystem is evolving rapidly. How do you see the rise of the sportainment economy, and where does LegaXy fit into this shift?

Sportainment reflects how sport in India has expanded beyond competition into culture, content, and community. Fans today engage with athletes daily through digital storytelling, live formats, learning platforms, and social participation, creating continuous engagement rather than seasonal attention.

LegaXy was founded to build a structure around this shift. We work across elite athletes, rising stars, and next-generation talent to ensure careers are planned with long-term intent. By integrating management, content, live engagement, education, and commerce, we help athletes remain relevant and valuable across different stages of their journey.

2. LegaXy positions itself as a 360-degree sportainment ecosystem. What does this definition mean?

A 360-degree ecosystem means designing an athlete’s career as a cohesive whole. At LegaXy, talent management, original content, live experiences, education, and licensing are aligned under a single strategic framework. This approach allows us to support athletes with clarity and continuity, ensuring that performance, visibility, and commercial growth evolve together across career phases.

3. LegaXy represents some of India’s most recognisable sports names alongside emerging talent. Can you tell us more about the kind of roster you work with?

Our roster is deliberately structured across three layers: established international athletes, rising domestic stars, and young emerging talent. We work with senior players such as Harshit Rana, Harbhajan Singh, Ishant Sharma, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Umesh Yadav, who bring leadership, experience, and strong fan trust. Alongside them, we represent a strong cohort of rising cricketers who are actively competing and breaking through at the domestic and league level. This includes players such as Harshit Rana, Sai Kishore, Rahul Tewatia, Harshal Patel, Shashank Singh, Jayant Yadav, Umran Malik, and Mayank Rawat, who are building momentum across the IPL and domestic tournaments. We also work closely with younger athletes coming through regional and age-group circuits, creating a clear progression from early promise to professional stability.

This layered roster allows us to build continuity, where experience, mentorship, and long-term planning play a central role in career development.

4. The brand has often spoken about moving beyond sponsorships to build long-term athlete value. What does that approach involve?

Long-term value is built through assets that endure across career phases. These include intellectual property, structured content platforms, learning initiatives, and strategic commercial partnerships. At LegaXy, sponsorships are aligned within a broader career framework. We work with athletes to ensure relevance, income, and influence continue through ownership, storytelling, and audience engagement beyond competitive timelines.

5. Content and storytelling are central to LegaXy’s strategy. Why is IP-led storytelling becoming critical for athlete and fan engagement today?

IP-led storytelling enables athletes to engage fans with consistency and depth. Audiences today seek insight into preparation, mindset, and life beyond match moments, and structured content formats support that connection over time.
Through LegaXy Studio, we develop original IPs that allow athletes to build long-term engagement with fans while retaining ownership and control over their narrative.

6. How is new-age digital fan engagement changing the way celebrity branding is impacted, and how is celebrity management evolving in India?

Digital engagement has made athlete-fan interaction continuous and transparent. Fans engage with athletes across platforms and formats, which has increased the importance of consistency, credibility, and long-term reputation. Celebrity management today involves structured planning across content, timing, and messaging. At LegaXy, this approach helps athletes build enduring trust with fans and brands.

7. Grassroots development is frequently discussed but less often executed effectively. How is LegaXy contributing to building India’s grassroots sports ecosystem?

Grassroots growth depends on structured pathways that connect participation to opportunity. LegaXy Sports Academy contributes through initiatives that support emerging sports, domestic leagues, education-led programmes, and innovation within the sports ecosystem. By working closely with young athletes and regional competitions, we help strengthen the pipeline that feeds into the next generation of professional talent.

8. With over two decades of experience across media, sports, and athlete-led ventures, how has that journey shaped your leadership at LegaXy?

My journey across media, sports, Finance and athlete-led ventures has given me a front-row view of how careers evolve, peak, and often transition faster than expected. Working closely with athletes over the years highlighted that performance alone is rarely enough to sustain long-term relevance or opportunity. What consistently made a difference was structure: clarity around decision-making, timing, and the ability to think beyond the immediate season or contract.

At LegaXy, this experience translates into a leadership approach centred on long-term planning and discipline. We focus on building systems that help athletes navigate growth, manage transitions with confidence, and prepare for phases of their careers that extend well beyond active competition. The emphasis is always on creating stability, direction, and sustained value rather than reacting to short-term momentum.

9. The recent IPL auction saw multiple LegaXy-managed young cricketers secure contracts. How does this validate your model, and what does it signal for LegaXy’s next phase of growth?

The IPL auction outcomes reinforce the value of preparation, patience, and structured career management. For young cricketers, success at this stage is rarely accidental. It is the result of consistent performance, the right exposure, and guidance that aligns opportunity with readiness.

These results validate our belief in investing early in talent and supporting athletes holistically as they move through domestic and competitive pathways. For LegaXy, it signals the importance of continuing to strengthen the Rising Stars pipeline, expanding our engagement across domestic and regional formats, and building deeper development frameworks that support athletes as they progress through successive stages of professional sport.

10. What is your long-term vision for LegaXy and the role it aims to play in elevating sport globally?

LegaXy’s long-term vision is to build a globally recognised sportainment platform anchored in Indian insight but relevant across markets. We see ourselves as a catalyst for how athletes, content, and audiences come together in a more structured and sustainable way.

Our focus is on developing scalable intellectual property, strong talent ecosystems, and engagement models that allow athletes to build lasting influence across sport, media, education, and commerce. Over time, we aim to contribute to a more mature global sports ecosystem where value is created not just through competition, but through culture, storytelling, and long-term career thinking.