LAWRENCE, Kan.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Mar 4, 2026--
The Good Game Inc., a Kansas-based sports technology company, today announced the launch of The Good Game app designed to revolutionize the youth sports industry with a Clear2Join™ Digital Passport for on-demand access to youth sports experiences. By directly connecting parents, sports experts and sports organizations in one network, the company offers unprecedented new booking and hiring resources for athletes and gig workers in the sports field. The app is launching in the Kansas area, and will roll out to select major cities in 2026.
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The Good Game App makes it easy for anyone involved in youth sports to Join The Game.
The Good Game technology helps elevate skills and training opportunities for young athletes, and also makes it easy for coaches and sports organizations to host their own camps and clinics.
The Good Game app directly connects sports experts to young athletes across sports. (Ryan Weaver/Fusion Friendlies)
The Good Game's all-in-one app makes youth sports simple, connected, and accessible for everyone.
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The Good Game platform makes finding, booking and staffing verified sports experts as simple as one-tap shopping on Amazon or scheduling a ride with Uber. With the global youth sports market reaching record participation levels* and projected growth to over $154 billion by 2035**, the app hosts a connected community built on supporting this expanding sector of young and passionate athletes. Through on-demand solutions for booking lessons, camps, clinics, and hiring sports specialists, The Good Game alleviates the challenges parents and sports organizations face in finding trusted sports experts to improve a young athlete’s skills in a safe, friendly, and compliant environment.
Breakthrough App Features
The all-in-one app enables everyone to Join the Game™ through one network that benefits the entire youth sports industry, including athletes, parents, officials, local sports clubs, volunteers, medics, rehab specialists, universities, mental performance professionals, video and content creators, equipment and cleanup crews, and more.
The app was created by Lawrence-based lifelong entrepreneur, Zarif Haque, who stewarded the successful launch of the Draiver app, which transformed vehicle transport on a global scale. “The Good Game app will play a defining role in shaping the future of youth sports as we know it,” said Haque. “As a parent, I saw a need that could be addressed with an all-in-one ecosystem, similar to the model I introduced at Draiver. This is shockingly simple technology that empowers more kids to play, more families to get involved, more athletes to earn, and more organizations to run smarter events – with real human connection.
“The Good Game finally unites a highly fragmented industry where parents have struggled to find trusted experts (only to then drown in paperwork); rising costs sidelined kids and reduced opportunity; and red tape buried clubs and universities with risk avoidance and bandwidth issues that kept them from doing what they do best. We brought a new all-in-one platform to better youth sports for everyone. It truly takes a village to host even one training or event, so we built one.”
Bettering Community Impact
Through The Good Game technology, local and national businesses can more effectively support community development with session scholarships that provide employment opportunities for student athletes at scale. The app reaches and enables thousands of student athletes to work with marginalized and underserved young athletes in their area, transforming corporate sponsorship from one-off donations into structured impact programs – a scalable, accountable model for strengthening communities through sport.
“The Good Game app has opened up so many amazing coaching opportunities for me as a current student-athlete,” says Heidi Devers, a Kansas University volleyball libero. “It’s simple to use: you can easily sign up, create your own schedule, and communicate directly with your athletes through the app. It’s given me the chance to connect with local young athletes and share my skills and knowledge with the next generation.”
Creating More Spaces to Join the Game
The Good Game company also invested in a fully-equipped gym, complete with a state-of-the-art Performance Lab, to provide an elevated training space and performance analysis tools for young athletes in the Kansas area. The company also offers a variety of skills camps and clinics across U.S. cities, and will announce major national partnerships in the coming year.
Sign up for Sports Experts across disciplines is currently open in Kansas communities.
Sources:
* Aspen Institute’s State of Play 2025; ** Business Research Insights 2025
About The Good Game
The Good Game is a mobile-first sports technology platform that connects the youth sports industry through verified, on-demand lessons and experiences. With one-time registration benefits, the app enables access for everyone in youth sports to attend events, donate or find earning opportunities. The app is available on iOS and Android platforms and will expand to select U.S. cities in 2026. Learn more at www.thegoodgame.com.
The Good Game App makes it easy for anyone involved in youth sports to Join The Game.
The Good Game technology helps elevate skills and training opportunities for young athletes, and also makes it easy for coaches and sports organizations to host their own camps and clinics.
The Good Game app directly connects sports experts to young athletes across sports. (Ryan Weaver/Fusion Friendlies)
The Good Game's all-in-one app makes youth sports simple, connected, and accessible for everyone.
Explosions sounded in Tehran Wednesday as Iran's war with the U.S. and Israel entered a fifth day following earlier strikes on an Iranian nuclear site and retaliatory strikes by the Islamic Republic across the Gulf region.
The explosions around Tehran came at dawn, according to Iran state television, while Israel’s military said its air defenses had been activated to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and explosions were heard around Jerusalem.
Five days into a war that U.S. President Donald Trump suggested could last a month or longer, nearly 800 people have been killed in Iran, including some Trump said he had considered as possible future leaders of the country.
Explosions also hit Lebanon, where Israel said it is retaliating against Hezbollah militants. Lebanon’s state-run media reported that at least four people were killed in an Israeli strike that hit a residential complex in the city of Baalbeck.
Here is the latest:
The guard says it is prepared for the “complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure.” The statement came via Iranian state television.
“The continued mischief and deception by the United States in the region will come at the cost of the complete destruction of the region’s military and economic infrastructure,” it says.
It alleges, without offering evidence, that the U.S. military was using “civilian facilities ... as cover.”
The death toll in Iran from the ongoing war with the United States and Israel has reached at least 1,045 people, an Iranian government agency said Wednesday.
The Iran’s Foundation of Martyrs and Veterans Affairs offered the toll, saying it represented the number of bodies so far identified and prepared for burial.
Turkey’s Defense Ministry says NATO defenses have intercepted a ballistic missile launched from Iran before it entered Turkey’s airspace. A ministry statement said the missile was detected after crossing Iraqi and Syrian airspace. NATO air and missile defense units stationed in the eastern Mediterranean intercepted it in time.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney say he sees the war as an extreme example of a rupturing world order in which countries increasingly act without respect for international norms and laws.
“Geo-strategically, hegemons are increasingly acting without constraint or respect for international norms or laws while others bear the consequences. Now the extremes of this disruption are being played out in real time in the Middle East,” Carney said at the Lowy Institute, a Sydney-based international policy think tank.
But whether the U.S. and Israeli airstrikes on Iran broke international law was “a judgment for others to make,” he said.
Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, a prominent religious leader based in Iraq, condemned the “military aggression” against Iran. He said attacking a country that is a member of the United Nations without U.N. approval is a violation of international law.
The Iran-born al-Sistani, who is one of the world’s most influential Shiite clerics, warned that war would cause widespread chaos and prolonged unrest “that will bring calamities to the peoples of the region and to the interests of others as well.”
Al-Sistani is based in the holy Shiite city of Najaf.
Iranian state television on Wednesday afternoon said the mourning ceremony for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had been postponed and would be held later after intense strikes targeted Tehran.
A Hong Kong expatriate living in Dubai moved hotels twice and encountered high prices for hotels and flights out of the country in her search for safety.
Agnes Chen Pun, a partner at an investment firm, said she was afraid her home in Dubai near the Burj Khalifa skyscraper could be targeted. That prompted her to move Monday into a resort in Fujairah on the eastern coast of the UAE, an around 1.5-hour drive from Dubai.
After spending a peaceful night in Fujairah, however, a fire broke at the port there.
“We see the dark smoke,” she said. “Everyone is like running, rushing in the (hotel) lobby.”
There were limited flights leaving UAE or Oman, and she considered taking a private jet from Oman back to Asia, as some others were doing. The cost, however, was as much as $268,000 for a 13-seat private jet flight.
She finally secured commercial flight tickets at around $2,200 per person for economy class seats for her family for an Emirates flight scheduled to fly out of Dubai to Singapore Wednesday evening.
The Iranian vessel that was sinking off of Sri Lanka, the IRIS Dena, is one of Iran’s newest warships.
The frigate was the centerpiece of a two-ship international tour in 2023 that included port calls in countries including South Africa and Brazil. It was accompanied by the support ship IRIS Makran, a converted oil tanker.
The U.S. Treasury Department included both ships on a sanctions designation in February 2023 along with eight executives of an Iranian drone manufacturer that supplied the weapons to Russia for use against civilian targets in Ukraine.
The Israeli military is ordering people living in dozens of villages in southern Lebanon close to the border with Israel to evacuate and move “immediately” north of the Litani River.
The Israeli army’s Arabic spokesperson warned people on X that if they decide to move south of the river they will be endangering their lives.
The area south of the Litani River is mostly along the border with Israel. The Lebanese government says it has cleared the area of Hezbollah’s military presence there over the past months.
Israel is seeing a decline in launches from Iran as the campaign enters its fifth day, military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin said.
Defrin also said Israel is not surprised by any new weapons Iran may use and had prepared extensively for the confrontation.
He said Israel would continue to “hunt and destroy” Iran’s military capabilities.
Israel has struck more than 250 Hezbollah targets in Lebanon over the past 48 hours, an Israeli army spokesperson said Wednesday.
Spokesperson Effie Defrin said in a recorded statement that the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah had been launching rockets at Israel overnight.
Defrin said Israel would continue to target Hezbollah until “the threat is removed.”
“I emphasize: We have no issue with the people of Lebanon. The people of Lebanon are paying the price for the Iranian regime,” he said.
A top Sri Lankan official says 32 people have been rescued from a sinking Iranian naval ship off Sri Lanka’s southern coast have been admitted to a hospital.
Dr. Anil Jasinghe, a top health ministry official, says one of them is in critical condition, seven are receiving emergency treatment and others are treated for minor injuries.
Foreign Minister Vijitha Herath told Parliament that Sri Lanka’s navy received information that the ship IRIS Dena with 180 onboard was under distress, and that the island nation sent ships and air force planes on a rescue mission.
There were no immediate details as to how the sailors were wounded and how the ship was damaged.
Kuwait’s military said a new wave of Iranian missiles and drone was targeting the tiny Mideast nation.
Iran’s judiciary chief threatened “those who say or do anything” in support of the U.S.-Israeli airstrike campaign targeting the Islamic Republic.
Gholam Hosseini Mohseni Ejehei’s remarks raised the possibility of those detained facing death-penalty charges, as cooperating with an enemy can carry execution if convicted.
Speaking on state television, he said: “Those who say or do anything in line with the will of America and the Zionist regime are on the enemy’s side and must be dealt with on revolutionary, Islamic principles and in accordance with the time of war.”
The British government says a chartered flight will take off from Oman late Wednesday to bring back some of the thousands of U.K. nationals in the Gulf.
It says the most vulnerable will be prioritized for the first of what is expected to be a series of flights.
The Foreign Office says more than 130,000 British nationals in the Middle East have registered their presence with the government since the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict broke out, though not all are trying to leave. Many of those are in the United Arab Emirates, and the government has advised against trying to travel overland to Oman.
Commercial airlines are also starting to resume some flights, with Etihad, Emirates and Virgin Atlantic all due to operate flights from the UAE to London on Wednesday.
The Israeli military said one of its F-35 stealth fighter jets shot down a piloted Iranian Air Force YAK-130 fighter over Tehran on Wednesday. Israel described it as the first air-to-air combat kill of a piloted aircraft by the fighter jet.
Iran’s top diplomat is again criticizing U.S. President Donald Trump as America and Israel continue their airstrike campaign targeting his country in the war.
Abbas Araghchi said that “Trump betrayed diplomacy and Americans who elected him.”
“When complex nuclear negotiations are treated like a real estate transaction, and when big lies cloud realities, unrealistic expectations can never be met,” Araghchi wrote on X. “The outcome? Bombing the negotiation table out of spite.”
The war began Saturday after Israel launched an airstrike killing Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The U.S. and Iran had held three rounds of nuclear negotiations prior to the start of the war, but no deal had been reached.
As the fighter jets roared overhead, those still in Tehran looked anxiously to the skies.
One man who ran a clothing shop said he didn’t know what, if anything, he could do.
“It’s very difficult to decide what to do. If I leave the city, how am I supposed to earn money and survive?” said the man, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“I just hope the Arabs do not get involved. If they do, their missiles won’t be as precise as these.”
By Jon Gambrell
Airstrikes also were reported in the Iranian cities of Urmiah and Kermanshah.
The Israeli military said it had begun “broad scale strikes” in Tehran.
Airstrikes struck eastern Tehran later Wednesday morning, witnesses said.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Tuesday he discussed the rapidly evolving situation in the Middle East and its global security implications with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan.
Sybiha expressed solidarity with Saudi Arabia and condemned what he described as Iran’s aggression, saying it threatens regional stability.
He said the two sides discussed the risks of further escalation and the need for diplomatic solutions, stressing that protecting civilians must remain a priority.
Sybiha noted that Ukraine has firsthand experience with missile and drone warfare, including daily attacks involving Shahed drones.
He said Kyiv is ready to share its expertise with partners facing similar threats.
Earlier, he spoke with his Kuwaiti counterpart, Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al Sabah.
“For Ukraine, this threat is not abstract. We face daily missile and drone attacks, including Iranian-made Shahed drones used by Russia against our cities and civilians,” Sybiha wrote on X.
Israel’s defense minister on Wednesday threatened whoever Iran picks to be the country’s next supreme leader, saying he will be “a target for elimination.”
Israel Katz made the statement on X.
“Every leader appointed by the Iranian terror regime to continue and lead the plan to destroy Israel, to threaten the United States and the free world and the countries of the region, and to suppress the Iranian people — will be a target for elimination,” he wrote.
Israel targeted a building Tuesday associated with Iran’s Assembly of Experts, which will select the new supreme leader.
Israel killed the 86-year-old Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a strike Saturday that started the war.
Qatar Airways will remain grounded until at least Friday, the airline said.
Israel’s military said it began new airstrikes in Beirut.
People staying in a hotel in a southeastern suburb of Beirut said the strike that hit the second floor came without warning.
Maggie Shibli, wife of the owner of the Hotel Comfort in the Hazmieh neighborhood, said they were sleeping when the missile hit.
“We live in a country where a missile can fall on your head at any moment,” she said.
Abbas Najdeh, who was displaced from the southern port city of Tyre and was staying at the hotel, said “we were sleeping then suddenly I, my children and my wife were thrown away.”
He added there was no warning.
The U.S. State Department has ordered non-emergency staff and their families working in the consulates in Lahore and Karachi to leave the country due to safety concerns.
Staff at the embassy in the capital Islamabad were not affected by the order.
Pakistan shares a long western border with Iran and has a sizable Shiite Muslim minority.
At least 10 people were killed in Karachi on Sunday after protesters attempted to storm the consulate in the city, Pakistan’s largest.
Starting Wednesday, there will be three nights of public mourning with the casket containing the body of the late 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in Iran’s capital, Tehran, Iranian state television reported.
The ceremony will take place at the Grand Mosalla of Tehran.
Iranian state television said the latest salvo in the war saw Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard launch 40 ballistic missiles at targets associated with the U.S. military in the Mideast.
It said it targeted Irbil in Iraq, two military bases in Kuwait, and two U.S. warships.
Strikes hit Lebanon overnight, including in several towns and on a hotel in a suburb right next to the capital.
Beirut woke up to the sounds of drones whizzing overhead.
The Israeli military warned residents in a southern suburb to flee ahead of a morning airstrike, as more displaced people fleeing the conflict pour into the capital seeking shelter.
Overnight Israeli strikes on towns near Beirut have killed at least six people, Lebanon’s Health Ministry said early Wednesday.
Israel struck the towns of Aramoun and Saadiyat just south of Beirut’s international airport, killing six and wounding eight others.
It also struck a hotel in the Beirut suburb of Hazmieh. No casualties were immediately reported there.
The strikes came without warning and the Israeli military did not immediately disclose the targets.
The Israeli military said Wednesday it conducted a series of strikes across Iran’s capital targeting its security forces.
It said it hit buildings associated with the Basij, the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that conducted the bloody crackdown on protesters in January that killed thousands and saw tens of thousands detained in the country.
The Israeli military also said it hit buildings associated with Iran’s internal security command, which also has suppressed demonstrations in the past.
Israel and the U.S. have said they want to see the Iranian public overthrow its theocracy.
Strikes against counterprotest forces likely are part of that effort.
An Iranian-backed militant group in Iraq said it fired drones toward Jordan.
The group, Saraya Awliya al-Dam, said that drones were aimed at “a vital target” in the kingdom.
Earlier Wednesday, Jordan’s state-run television reported that sirens sounded across the country.
Iraqi militants on Tuesday threatened to target Jordan over allegations that U.S. aircraft that bombed their facilities took off from a Jordanian air base.
A building associated with the clerical panel that will pick Iran’s next supreme leader came under attack in an airstrike in the holy seminary city of Qom, semiofficial media reported.
The attack Tuesday hit the building in the Resalat neighborhood of Qom.
The semiofficial Fars and Tasnim news agencies, both believed to be close to Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, linked the building to Iran’s Assembly of Experts and said there was no meeting ongoing there at the time of the attack.
Fars further went on to say the assembly is meeting remotely, without elaborating.
It added that meetings over naming a new leader are ongoing — suggesting there could be an announcement by Iran in the coming days over who will replace the 86-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike at the start of the war Saturday.
There was no report on if anyone was hurt in the strike.
Israel’s public broadcaster KAN said Israel carried out the attack, though there’s been no confirmation from its military.
The Assembly of Experts is an 88-member panel which “must, as soon as possible” pick a new supreme leader under Iranian law.
The panel consists entirely of Shiite clerics who are popularly elected every eight years and whose candidacies are approved by the Guardian Council, Iran’s constitutional watchdog.
The death toll from the strike on a residential complex in Baalbeck, Lebanon, rises to five, the state-run National News Agency reported.
Fifteen others were wounded and three are missing, it said.
Sirens have sounded Wednesday morning across Jordan, the kingdom’s state television reported.
An Israeli airstrike hit a hotel outside of Beirut, Lebanon’s state-run news agency reported Wednesday.
The strike came in Hazmieh, about 5 kilometers (3 miles) southeast of downtown Beirut.
The report from Lebanon’s National News Agency said ambulances had been dispatched to the scene.
It did not elaborate in its short report.
Asian shares tumbled Wednesday, with South Korea’s benchmark plunging as much as 11%, while oil prices climbed even higher.
Worries over the widening conflict with Iran have hammered most world markets.
In Tokyo, the Nikkei 225 shed 3.4% to 54,346.73.
Japan, like South Korea, depends heavily on imports of oil and natural gas from the Middle East that are now stranded in the Persian Gulf.
The price of U.S. benchmark crude oil climbed 1.2% to $75.46 per barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 1.5% to $82.61 per barrel.
Higher oil prices and how much they might worsen inflation are spooking investors worried that more spikes for oil prices may grind down the global economy and sap corporate profits.
The rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign is seen in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Workers remove the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
A man carries an Iranian flag to place on the rubble of a police facility struck during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Israeli tanks maneuver near the Israel-Lebanon border, in northern Israel, Wednesday, March 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
An Iranian flag is placed among the ruins of a police station struck Monday during the U.S.–Israeli military campaign in Tehran, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi)
Firefighters inspect the rubble as smoke rises from a building hit by an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
Jewish men covered in prayer shawls pray in an underground parking garage as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Tel Aviv, Israel, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
A coffin is carried during the funeral of mostly children killed in what Iranian officials said was an Israeli-U.S. strike Feb. 28 at a girls' elementary school in Minab, Iran, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (Abbas Zakeri/Mehr News Agency via AP)
A man takes shelter in an underground metro station as a precaution against possible Iranian missile attacks, in Ramat Gan, Israel Monday, March 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Oded Balilty)
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
