Torrance, Calif. and Stockholm, Sweden — February 22, 2022, The American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) is pleased to announce a new partnership with Heja’s sports team communication app to connect millions of soccer players, families, and volunteers. The partnership focuses on the importance of youth sports, being connected to teams and helping volunteer coaches to manage their teams throughout the soccer season.
Heja’s social platform allows coaches, parents and players to easily organize and communicate in one place. The company was founded by Mikael Blix and Johan Berglund, who previously founded laget.se, the largest sports club management platform in the Nordics. In 2017, they started Heja with the ambition to connect a global audience of 1.5 billion people in youth sports. Today, over 180,000 teams use Heja’s app to keep track of upcoming practices, schedule games and more with their teammates.
“Like AYSO, we believe youth sports play tremendous roles in kids’ lives and that youth sports volunteers are heroes! Now everyone is back out on the field, we’re extremely proud to become the official team communication app of AYSO and make youth sports simple for boys’ and girls’ teams and their families across the United States,” said Mikael Blix, Heja CEO.
“As we all re-connect thru the beautiful game of soccer with more and more kids playing post-pandemic, we could not be more excited to have a new partnership with Heja,” said Matt Winegar, AYSO Transistional Executive Director. “Heja’s innovative platform is going to be so helpful to our core philosophy of Everyone Plays!”
The two-year marketing partnership between AYSO and Heja will provide for marketing and program support for AYSO, development of coaching training for enhanced team management and outreach to over 40,000 AYSO teams.
As Jeff Schell, Regional Commissioner of AYSO 114 in Long Beach shared, “I’ve used Heja for years. It really makes team communication easier. We use it for group chats, direct messages, videos and pictures of our team, and planning practice schedules & parties. I’m a big fan.” Heja looks forward to working with and building relationships with more AYSO members like Jeff across the country.
For more information on the partnership and instructions on how to download the app and access the exclusive AYSO deal, please visit https://aysovolunteers.org/get-heja/.
About American Youth Soccer Association
Established in 1964, AYSO is a national non-profit organization that develops and delivers quality youth soccer programs, which promote a fun, family environment based on AYSO’s Six Philosophies: Everyone Plays®, Balanced Teams, Open Registration, Positive Coaching, Good Sportsmanship, and Player Development. Today, AYSO has 1.6 million players, parents, siblings and volunteers. For more information, please visit www.ayso.org.
About Heja
Heja is the home of team sports. The vertical social platform enables sports teams to communicate and share memorable moments. The company was founded by Mikael Blix and Johan Berglund in Stockholm 2017 with the vision to be the home where teams grow together. Heja has to date raised 7 million USD from Peak Capital, Luminar Ventures, Bonnier Ventures, Inbox Capital, Max Ventures and angel investors including such as Caroline Ingeborn (ex-Tocaboca COO), Ted Nelson (ex-Truecaller CCO) and Mattias Weinnhandl (former NHL player). For more information, please visit www.heja.io.
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Media Contacts
AYSO
Yvonne Lara
424-221-7971 / yvonnelara@ayso.org
Heja
Laurie Bell
+46791006630 / laurie.bell@heja.io
