What a Sportika Labs Youth Soccer Academy License Includes: Platform, Methodology, People
From day one, a Sportika Labs license gives you a working platform, a methodology for ages 3 to 16, a Data Room of business know-how and a Business Tracker who works through the launch with you.
“What exactly do I get?” is one of the first questions on our intro calls. Every Sportika Labs partner receives:
- An AI-powered platform with the CRM, online booking, automated texts and hiring
- A parent portal and online payments for every family, with the coach’s notes after training
- A European methodology for ages 3 to 16, with 1,000+ session plans, drills and games
- Help with marketing when you need it, to fill your groups with kids
- Access to uniforms and equipment, plus a brand kit with hundreds of templates
- A Data Room of 2,000+ files, with venue agreements, coach contracts and call scripts
- A Business Tracker and a launch path of 45, 60 or 90 days, with a weekly call from signing through launch and after
- FIFA-style player cards from a video-based assessment
The system grew out of 750+ locations in 120+ cities and already works in the US. A partner academy in Austin, Texas went from zero to dozens of paid memberships and $7,905 a month in recurring revenue in about two months. These are that academy’s own results, and they do not predict what another academy will earn. The launch case study shows how the academy opened, and the marketing case study covers its ad campaign.
An AI-Powered Platform Built for Youth Soccer
Families book a trial from your website or from Instagram and WhatsApp, even at 11 PM on a Sunday, and pick the location and age group. Requests from your site and from Facebook and Instagram lead ads land in the CRM by themselves. You get an instant notification, so you or your admin can call while the interest is fresh.
In the CRM, you see where every family stands and what the next task is. If a family drops out, the reason stays on record. Texts go out on their own at each step: a confirmation, reminders before the trial, a thank-you after it, a follow-up after a no-show, a welcome when the family pays and a nudge for families who go quiet.
The platform keeps count of the spots left in each class and stops offering trials in a class that is full. It also flags memberships that are about to run out, so you can reach the family in one tap.
You can ask the AI assistant about your own academy, for example which trials are booked this week. Hiring runs in the same place. Coach candidates sit in one pipeline, each with an AI summary of the resume.
You don’t need to be technical, because we look after hosting and updates. How the launch splits between us and you.
A Parent Portal and Online Payments for Every Family
Each family in your CRM gets a parent portal on their phone, with no app and no password. After training, the coach’s note goes on the family’s card in the CRM, and parents read it in the portal. The note says what the child did well and what to practice at home, so parents can follow how their child is doing from week to week.
The portal lists other classes for the child’s age group that still have open spots. A family on a monthly membership can see where a second day or a better time fits and ask your admin to set it up.
Parents also find the next class with a map link, the weekly schedule, their membership and a code to invite friends, so you get fewer “what time is practice?” texts.
We set up online payments through Stripe and help you open your academy’s own account, so the money goes straight to you. Families pay by card, including Apple Pay, or by bank transfer, and get a receipt after every charge. They can change their plan or update a card on their own. You get a notification for every payment, and your Stripe dashboard shows the academy’s payments and revenue.
A Full Season of Sessions for Ages 3 to 16
Your coaches never build a training plan from scratch. In the platform they open the yearly plan, pick the age group and the month, and that month’s sessions are ready.
A separate library holds drills and games sorted by skill, such as dribbling, passing, possession, defending and goalkeeping. Together with the yearly plan, that makes more than 1,000 materials, and coaches can filter them by age and by the venue and equipment they have that day.
The methodology was developed by international sports directors with UEFA Pro licenses and experience at Champions League academies, La Liga and national team staffs. Albert Aparisi Rull, our Sports Director, leads coach onboarding. He holds a UEFA Pro License and was formerly Coordinator and Coach at FC Barcelona Academy Pro New York. Coaches start with his onboarding webinars.
Sessions are built around games at every age. For the younger groups, dribbling is “Sharks and Minnows” and coordination is an obstacle course. The children think they are playing, and at this age families stay because their child leaves class smiling. As kids get older, the games carry more technique and tactics.
Many Sportika Labs partners are not coaches themselves. The methodology is ready-made, and your coaches run it with help from our sports team, in chats and support sessions.
See the platform and the parent portal live
On a 20-minute intro call we'll show you both and walk you through how they would work for your market.
Leave a requestMarketing Help to Fill Your Groups
Your Business Tracker builds a media plan with the channels for your market and the leads to expect from each. We set up a landing page for your academy, with online booking connected to your CRM. When you want more help bringing in families, our team helps you run the ads and adjust them every week.
The ad setup was tested on a partner academy in Austin, Texas. Leads there came in at about $11 each, and a membership cost about $50 to win in ad spend, against a first monthly payment that averages $146. The ads and the numbers behind them are in the Austin marketing case study.
Uniforms, Equipment and a Brand Kit
Through us, your academy can order match-day kits, training gear and coach apparel, sized for every age from preschool through teens, at partner prices. Kit sales to families add income on top of memberships.
Kids also get things they show off at home. They fill Panini-style sticker journals between sessions and hang their medals in their rooms, and parents post photos of both.
The brand kit has a professionally designed logo and emblems, a brand book with colors and typography, and hundreds of templates for flyers, roadside banners, social media posts and merch. Our designers make new layouts on request.
2,000+ Files of Business Knowledge, Organized in 15 Folders
Everything we have learned about running youth soccer academies is packed into a Virtual Data Room. For most situations you will meet in this business, there is a document to start from. It holds the launch guide, guidelines for finding venues, venue rental agreements and contracts for classes at daycares and preschools. There are also coach contracts and interview scripts, call and WhatsApp scripts with an objection guide, parent forms and waivers, and guides for camps and tournaments.
One of our partners answered more than 200 WhatsApp conversations in a single summer with replies built on these scripts.
How the Data Room compares with writing your own operations manual.
Your Launch in 45 to 90 Days
Partners who follow the Launch Roadmap target their first paid memberships in 45, 60 or 90 days. If the plan slips, your tracker adjusts it with you. The roadmap in the platform breaks the launch into 63 steps, and many of them link to the documents you need.
You get a Business Tracker, a person from our team assigned to your launch, and a chat with our support team.
- Venues. You start from the venue list our AI agent put together for your area.
- Coaches. You get the HR pipeline, job descriptions and interview scripts, and we offer to interview your candidates with you.
- Coach training, led by our Sports Director.
- Media plan and leads. You and your tracker plan where the leads will come from and how many trials to expect, then test and adjust every week.
- Setup. The CRM, automated texts, payments, the parent portal and your landing page go live.
- Welcome pack. You order your first kit through us: uniforms, coach gear, bibs, backpacks, sticker journals and medals for trial classes.
- Launch. The first sessions and the first paid memberships.
After launch, the weekly call continues. You and your tracker go over the week’s numbers, and any question about running the academy can go on the same call. When a question needs a specialist, the tracker brings one in from our team. Dozens of recorded webinars cover nutrition, psychology, camps, business development and other topics, and new methodology content keeps coming.
Your tracker fills in an operational model with you, using your own venue rent, coach pay, enrollment and prices. Our monthly platform fee is tied to your academy’s revenue, so we do better when you enroll more families.
Most partners operate under the Sportika Labs brand and use its brand kit and marketing materials. You can also launch under your own brand and use our platform and methodology behind the scenes, with the same support.
What we handle: hosting and updates for the platform, the methodology, coach training, your landing page and the weekly call with your tracker.
What you handle: hiring coaches, finding venues and setting the group schedule, answering families on WhatsApp the same day, and being at your academy.
Player Cards: The Feature Parents Post on Instagram
Every Sportika Labs academy includes FIFA-style player cards as a standard part of the program.
A coach films an assessment drill on a smartphone. The video-based assessment turns it into a player card with skill ratings such as speed and dribbling. The cards look like the ones kids know from video games, and partners get training on how to run the assessments and fit them into the program.
Parents screenshot the card and send it to the grandparents. The next day, kids compare ratings with their friends. Each child’s ratings can be compared across the Sportika Labs network and worldwide, and parents can see them change with each assessment. The highest-rated players in the network receive a printed card. Academies and coaches earn ratings too.
We track the best players in the system and can help show them to scouts from clubs, MLS academies and colleges. Across 750+ locations, the cards have brought more referrals than any paid ad campaign.
A Day in the Life of a Sportika Labs Partner
9:00 AM. You open the CRM. Four families booked a trial overnight through your Instagram ad, and each one already has a confirmation text. You call the two who left a question.
10:30 AM. You ask the AI assistant whose membership ends this month. It lists three families, and you text each of them about next month.
11:00 AM. Weekly call with your Business Tracker. You go through the week’s leads and memberships against the plan and set targets for next week. You also ask how to answer a parent who wants to pause for a month. After the call, the tracker sends a written recap with your tasks.
3:00 PM. Your coaches open today’s plans. The 5-6 group plays Sharks and Minnows, and the 10-12 group plays 1v1 games and works on finishing.
5:30 PM. Three children arrive for their first trial. At the end, every child gets a medal for the first session, and one girl won’t let go of hers, the first sports medal she has ever had. Her mother signs up before they reach the parking lot and pays with Apple Pay. A moment later, you get the payment notification.
8:30 PM. A parent checks next week’s schedule in the parent portal instead of texting you.
Book a 20-minute intro call to see how this day would look in your city.
What This Would Cost to Build Yourself
Building the same system on your own (a CRM, online booking, automated texts, a parent portal and payments, plus a methodology and the legal and operating documents) costs six to seven figures and takes 5 to 10 years, and after that you pay to maintain it every year.
On top of that, you would sort out insurance and contracts and test ads until one brings families at a price that works. And you would learn parent communication by trial and error.
With a license, you start with these pieces ready and a tracker who meets with you every week. See the full investment breakdown.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need soccer coaching experience to become a partner? No. If you do have coaching experience, after a conversation with us, you can also become the head coach of your own academy. If you don’t, our sports team and the platform show you what matters when you choose coaches, and we help you select them, onboard them and check their work. We also show you how to manage your coaches and what to keep an eye on.
Can I start part-time while keeping my current job? Yes. Many partners begin while employed full-time, and the tracker adjusts the launch timeline to your availability. An academy run a few hours a week does grow more slowly, though.
What if there are already soccer programs in my area? Competition helps, because it shows there is demand. We often don’t compete with those programs for the same kids, since our academies bring in many children who are new to soccer. If you want to recruit stronger players too, we can set up ad campaigns aimed at them.
How do families pay, and where does the money go? We connect your academy to payments on Stripe. Families pay the usual ways, by card, Apple Pay or bank transfer, and the money goes to your academy’s own Stripe account. We help you open the account and link it to our platform, so payments work from your first class and you see your academy’s finances on your own dashboard.
Is this a club with teams and a league? Not at the start. Your academy begins with weekly training sessions by age group in rented venues, with families on monthly memberships. Later, you can form teams from your stronger players whose parents are ready to travel, and take those teams into competitive soccer. Academies built on the same system have done this in many cities. Our sports team and the video-based skill assessment help you prepare players to compete at a good level.
Do you offer financing? We work with financing partners and can introduce you to them on the intro call. What they can offer depends on your credit score. Sportika Labs doesn’t lend money itself, so the decision and the terms are up to the lender.
What does the full investment look like? See the complete investment breakdown and revenue model.
What One of Our Partners Says
The partner who runs the academy in Austin, Texas answers our questions about the launch and the first months.
Take the Next Step
If this sounds like it could work in your city, book a 20-minute intro call. We’ll walk you through an operational model, where you add your own enrollment and prices, and send you our presentation with a list of venues in your area. If going independent makes more sense for your situation, we’ll tell you directly.
How Sportika Labs compares to starting on your own | Investment details and revenue model | How a partner academy launched in Austin | Frequently asked questions