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Sorare is a fantasy sports game where players can buy, sell, trade and manage a virtual team with digital cards as NFTs, using the ERC-721 token standard. It operates on the Ethereum network in order to secure the ownership and distribution of cards. The supply of cards is limited and they cannot be altered, duplicated or deleted. The game was developed back in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, and since then, it has blown up.
What Is Fantasy Football?
Before we go any further, let me explain what fantasy football, or other fantasy sports games are. For this example, I’m going to use football (soccer).
Fantasy football is a game in which participants create a virtual team of real-life football players and score points based on your players’ statistical performance or perceived contribution on the field.
Friends can enter into leagues together where they will draft a team and compete against each other over the sports season. According to the Fantasy Sports and Gaming Association, as of 2017, there were an impressive 59.3 million people playing fantasy sports. It’s safe to say that there is a large audience for Sorare to target.
In the beginning, Sorare was solely an Ethereum-based fantasy football platform, starting with partnerships with the Spanish football league, La Liga. Also, the Sorare team has secured the rights to European giants like Atletico Madrid, Juventus, and Bayern Munich, as well as the Major League Soccer (MLS), Korean League, and Japanese League.
Since then, it has grown exponentially and expanded into baseball with an official Major League Baseball (MLB) game as it signed an official partnership on May 12th, 2022.
Additionally, it then signed a multi-year partnership with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to expand into basketball.
More recently, it appears as if they are closing in on a deal with the Premier League. Sorare is not re-inventing anything, but instead, it is simply using NFTs to enhance the fantasy sports model.
Why Sorare means business
Sorare is an official and fully licensed game, and is paying millions for the rights to feature league branding and the likeness of some of the most famous athletes in the world. This is impossible to replicate without spending big bucks.
The fact that Sorare has raised over $700 million, and that people are paying 5 and 6 figures for its in-game trading cards speaks volumes.
There are a reported 2 million registered users spread across 185 countries, and it’s only gaining more momentum. Learning this, you’re probably wanting to get involved.
How To Play?
To get set up, it’s a relatively simple process:
- Create your first team. Sign up to Sorare for the first time, and you’ll be given 10 common cards straight away for free.
- Enter your first team in the Rookie League. This league is reserved for new players – called Managers.
- Build your first team. You’ll need to choose 5 cards in total.
- Enter up to 4 leagues, or play for 4 weeks, and you’ll be promoted to New Manager. Congratulations!
- Build your team up with player cards you’ve won, or trade for some on the Transfer Market.
- Prizes can be won such as ETH, cards and trips to sports games.
Sorare has cards in different rarity rankings. Across all games, there are 5,000 limited cars, 1,000 rares, 100 super rares and 1 unique. Due to basic supply and demand economics, common cards are cheaper and rarer cards are more valuable.
Back in 2021, a Cristiano Ronaldo card was sold for $289,920, showing the scale of this game.
The Sorare collection has done 50k ETH in total volume on OpenSea and the platform is growing fast. There is a global audience collecting, buying, and selling their favorite players in the form of blockchain-backed NFTs.
If you’re a sports and NFT fan, this may be the perfect game. If your friends are sports fans, this could be a great way to onboard new people into Web3.
