Sports management SaaS startup Spordle has acquired its British Columbia competitor HiSports for an undisclosed amount of money.
HiSports was founded by André Larouche in 2015 with the goal of helping minor hockey leagues ditch paper and digitize their management. The platform helped leagues schedule referees and teams while keeping track of scores and penalties, in addition to other backend management tools. In 2018, the company began supporting other sports, like lacrosse and ringette.
The acquisition will see the HiSports app absorbed into the Spordle ecosystem under the name Spordle Play, which is already integrated into the Spordle developed Hockey Canada Registry. Spordle Play is intended to be ready for the 2022-2023 season and will feature HiSports’ digitized game sheets and referee assignment system under the new banner.
Spordle Play will be joining the company’s five other sports management solutions under the Spordle name: Spordle ID, Spordle One, Spordle Event, Spordle Plex, and Spordle Site. Spordle’s platform helps leagues and teams do everything from scheduling and registration to website building.
Québec-based Spordle was founded in 2009 by CEO Lyno Tominaga Cote to provide sports management software solutions on an integrated platform. It currently supports more than 3,000 local associations, which have over 750,000 participants in Hockey Canada sanctioned programs across the country every year.
Spordle developed the Hockey Canada Registry for Hockey Canada and released it in June 2021, replacing Hockey Canada’s now discontinued “eHockey” system. The registry connects participants to Hockey Canada’s programs and events across Canada. On April 5, Spordle and Hockey Canada announced a multi-year partnership agreement for further platform improvements and making the company a national marketing partner with Hockey Canada.
In 2021, HiSports agreed to a five-year deal with BC Hockey to be its exclusive and official supplier, requiring all games in the BC Hockey jurisdiction to use the HiSports app. This included 131 associations, 2,750 teams, and 65,000 minor hockey participants. Through this acquisition, Spordle said it became the leading provider of minor hockey in BC.
Feature image by April Walker on Unsplash.