Heimo Esports offers new esports opportunities in Espoo
Through its pilot project, Heimo Esports develops organised hobby group activities in esports and arranges school visits to the club’s esports facilities.
The City of Espoo project ‘Modernizing Sport to Foster a New Active Generation’ aims to improve residents’ opportunities to engage in recreational activities and to activate residents through digital phenomena. These objectives are promoted, for example, through pilot projects funded by the European Union. Eleven pilot projects have already been launched.
One of the partners is Heimo Esports, which has been able to pilot its activities in Espoo over the past year. Heimo is a sports club founded in 1992, and today it is also one of Finland’s largest floorball clubs. At the Espoo Sports Gala 2022, Heimo received the award for Espoo’s sports club of the year.
The pilot project focuses on Heimo’s esports activities. Over the past year, Heimo has been developing esports and gaming activities in Espoo. The pilot project has three main goals, and the aim is to achieve these goals by the end of February 2024.
The first goal is to run regular hobby group activities. The second goal is to organise school visits to gaming facilities and demonstrate the educational value of gaming. The third goal is to use new digital games to activate young people. Although children and young people are the primary target group of the pilot project, everyone is welcome to participate.
Heimo merges the worlds of esports and traditional sports
Gaming and esports have become increasingly popular in recent decades, especially among children and young people. According to the Finnish Player Barometer, around 89 per cent of Finns played digital games once a month or more in 2022. In its pilot project, Heimo focuses on this phenomenon, aiming to make gaming and esports part of traditional sports club activities.
In its own words, Heimo wants to “merge these two worlds”, allowing city residents to engage in both gaming and traditional sports and exercise in the same club. The goal is ambitious, as similar activities have not yet been carried out elsewhere in Finland.
New ‘Tribe Gamebase’ provides gaming facilities for Espoo residents
Espoo’s Otahalli has been Heimo’s home base for over a decade. In 2023, a gaming space called Tribe Gamebase was opened in Otahalli. The space has eleven gaming computers, so visitors do not need to bring their own equipment. Gaming at Tribe Gamebase is a social activity. Participants get to make new friends and learn teamwork skills through gaming. If participants want to aim higher, Heimo also provides opportunities for goal-oriented competitive gaming and the pursuit of a professional career. Enquiries about Heimo and the pilot project: samuel.lindholm@westendtribe.fi
You can follow Heimo’s esports activities on X, Instagram and Tiktok: @Heimoesports
Heimo’s website (in finnish): https://westendindians.fi/e-urheilu-edustus/info/