Sports
Sport Spirit Fed scores a power play with Zee veteran Adil Memon as new chief
Former Zee Entertainment Middle East boss takes the crease as SSF eyes global expansion
DUBAI: Sport Spirit Fed (SSF) has brought in Adil Memon, a 19-year Zee Entertainment veteran, as chief executive and managing partner, and the Dubai-based sports IP firm is making no secret of its ambitions beyond the Gulf.
Memon, who served as executive vice president at Zee Entertainment Enterprises Middle East before trading broadcast corridors for the pitch, will oversee operations and spearhead SSF’s push into sports IP creation, execution, production and technology. He reports directly to founder and managing director Mohammad Saif.
Saif was bullish about the hire. “Adil brings the strategic depth needed to scale our existing IPs and lead the launch of new verticals,” he said, signalling that SSF’s years of UAE brand-building were merely the warm-up act.
Founded in 2021, SSF is an Indian company operating out of Dubai Motor City and Sheikh Zayed Road, with fingers in cricket, football, tennis, pickleball and kabaddi. It has already racked up an impressive roster: Camp with the Champ, the Dubai Open for Cricket Academies, the Titans Cup, the Dubai Open for Pickleball, the International Kabaddi League and the Dubai Open for Tennis Academies, alongside associations with cricketing royalty including Chris Gayle, Yuvraj Singh and Harbhajan Singh, and tennis star Sania Mirza. Institutional backers include the Dubai Sports Council, the UAE Tennis Federation and International League T20.
For Memon, the move is a calculated gamble, swapping a media giant for a scrappy, ambitious upstart with global designs. “My focus will be on strengthening our current sports and media IPs while launching new ventures that can take the company into new markets,” he said.
The ball, emphatically, is now in his court.
