What’s Sorare: Play To Earn Game Shows the Potential of the NFT Sector | by Maximilian Perkmann | September 2022

The NFT-based fantasy sports platform Sorare is currently one of the most talked about platforms in the crypto space. Well deserved, if you consider the active players. Sorare is a fantasy football manager game. Managers (the name given to players) can create a virtual team, which consists of digital player cards. These player cards are NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain and can be bought and traded there.

Sorare is one of the most successful NFT games and allows players to make decisions and optimize their squad based on the real performance of professionals.

Own Your Game – Experience football like never before, and turn your fantasy into reality. — sorare.com

Sorare SAS was founded in France in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort. Before that, they both gained experience in the blockchain space by working together at the technology startup Stratum. Sorare quickly became the most popular game in the football NFT universe. There are currently well over 600,000 managers from 170 countries.
In September 2021, Sorare announced that a further €580 million had been invested in a new round of financing by Japan’s Softbank Group. Sorare is now valued at around $4.3 billion. The company employs around 200 people in Paris and New York, making it the most valuable startup in France.
Sorare now generates several hundred million US dollars a year by embossing football trading cards.
The company also has expansion plans in other areas. It was recently announced that Sorare will soon launch its own platform for the American baseball league MLB.

Sorare has official license agreements with 245 clubs from 39 different leagues, with a total of 6,000 different player cards. Among them FC Barcelona, ​​​​Bayern Munich, Paris St. Germain and others.
In addition to the many official licenses, Sorare has many well-known personalities supporting the start-up. Investors include Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian and well-known multi-entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk. Sports stars such as Antoine Griezmann, Gerard Piqué, André Schürrle, Rio Ferdinand, Oliver Bierhoff and Serena Williams are also among the investors.

Quick facts:

• SoRare is a blockchain based fantasy football game with real players and teams or leagues.
• Football NFTs are issued as NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain (ERC721 token standard).
• Making money with Sorare NFTs is possible in two ways: trading football NFTs by value increase on the one hand, or weekly income based on the performance of football players lined up in the team.

The playing cards are licensed digital collectibles: each digital card is registered as a unique token on the Ethereum blockchain. The cards have a verifiable rarity. The cards’ existence and transaction history are stored transparently on the Ethereum blockchain.
As a result, the cards cannot be changed and are tamper proof. Player cards come in five different categories. The starting cards “Common” cannot be changed, they are unlimited and not very useful for the game. Players of the other four rarity types “Limited” (of which there are 1000 per footballer), “Rare” (100), “Super Rare” (10) and “Unique” (1) are available for purchase.
On the cards there is other information, such as the serial number, the season the card comes from (there are new player cards every season), and the player’s age, position and nation.

How to play Sorare with NFTs?

The player card’s NFTs are not only valuable assets, they can also be used in the game. For each matchday, the managers create their virtual teams of five players each. A goalkeeper, a defender, a midfielder and a striker, plus another optional player. With the fantasy team, the manager attends match days and competes for prizes. The more players, the higher the prizes. After match day, points based on a player’s performance (eg goals and assists) determine the winner(s). Depending on the card’s rarity, players also receive different boosts for the points scored.

Depending on the rarity levels of the players and other requirements, the managers may sign up for tournaments. There are different tournaments in the individual classes, which are categorized according to, for example, the league or the age of the players.

How much do the NFTs cost?

Prices vary significantly depending on the rarity and potential of the player. The most expensive player card to date was Erling Haaland’s “Unique” card, which was sold for around USD 630,000 in January. However, less rare Limited cards can be purchased for a few dollars.
The free cards can only be played within the Rookie League. New player cards can be purchased at auctions after minting or traded between managers in a secondary market, the Sorare Marketplace. Buying or trading NFTs requires an NFT wallet.
Apart from the Ethereum gas fees and the cost of the cards, Sorare is free to play. You can also pay by credit card.

The Sorare coin is… just kidding! There is nobody. In fact, the game does not require its own utility token. Only Ethereum is required to pay for football NFTs and gas fees associated with blockchain transactions.

That means one way to invest in the platform’s success is to buy and hold Ethereum tokens.

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Since its launch in 2020, the Sorare NFT football platform has experienced tremendous growth, increasing its user base by over 500% to around 150,000 users in 2021 alone. Football NFT auction revenue has also increased by more than 5100% (51x). Considering that the global fantasy football industry is worth close to $16 billion and already had an active user base of over 60 million players worldwide in 2020, Sorare NFT still has huge potential in the existing market alone. Sorare is also the market leader and has a huge resource on its side with exclusive licenses to football clubs and leagues; it is almost a monopoly in this niche. At the same time, in addition to constantly expanding its base of fantasy football fans, Sorare can still grow in two directions: women’s football or even other sports.

Technically, the project coming from France is based on the Ethereum blockchain. Managers can buy the trading cards with ETH and any winnings are also paid out via the Ethereum blockchain.
Due to its success, Sorare plans to expand its ecosystem in the near future by creating a new platform for the American professional baseball league MLB.
Sorare combines classic fantasy football with real leagues and football NFTs based on the Ethereum blockchain. One of the best play-to-earn concepts I’ve seen so far.