NFT fantasy soccer game startup Sorare signs a multi-year, multi-million deal with the Premier League

While the once red-hot NFT market has cooled off over the past few months, there are now signs that the NFT market might be poised for a big rebound as the influx of money and deals return to crypto and Web3 startups. An example of this is Sorare, a $4.3 billion NFT fantasy soccer game startup that recently signed a multi-year, multi-million deal to sell NFT digital tokens to fans.

According to multiple reports, Sorare has just signed a multi-year deal with the Premier League that will see the world’s top soccer league license official player cards. The deal was worth £30 million, according to a report from SkyNews.

According to the report, the English football’s top flight decided to reach a deal with Sorare after talks with a rival provider collapsed. As part of the deal, players of the game will be able to purchase and use official Premier League-licensed NFTs under the exclusive multi-year agreement.

“The agreement with Sorare is to provide so-called non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a fast-growing but volatile asset class which enables fans to ‘own’ an image of a famous artwork or sporting highlight,” SkyNews wrote.

We wrote about the Paris, France-based Sorare two years after the SoftBank-backed startup raised $680 million in funding at a $4.3 billion valuation to create the next sports entertainment giant leveraging NFTs. Sorare, which has 3 million users worldwide, is now the largest sports-based NFT platform by sales volume, according to NonFungible.com, a website that tracks NFT market data. It plans to open an office in the United States and expand into sports other than soccer.

Founded in 2018 by CEO Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort, Sorare is a global fantasy football game where players can buy, trade, and play with official digital cards. Sorare’s online game site provides a platform where players buy officially licensed cards representing soccer players and build teams that play against each other, with the outcome based on the players’ performance in real-life games.

The startup lets people compete in fantasy soccer games of five a side. The chances of success are based on the real-time performance of players on the pitch.

Meanwhile, Sorare said it’s also planning to launch two new features in the game, which includes the ability to compete with league-specific player cards and a “financial fair play” feature that prevents users from selecting all-star teams.

Sorare cards are NFTs, meaning each card is unique and scarce, and its ownership is publicly verifiable via the Ethereum blockchain. The cards are traded in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs), a kind of crypto asset that records the ownership status of digital goods on the blockchain.

It is a secure and transparent model of digital ownership. Through collecting, owning, and trading these limited edition digital collectibles, Sorare is designing a unique game experience where users can truly own their game and build real-world connections.

NFTs are non-fungible tokens, essentially cryptographic assets that live on the blockchain with features such as unique identification codes and metadata that are used to distinguish one from another. Whereas each Bitcoin is identical to any other Bitcoin, NFTs are unique, meaning they cannot be traded or exchanged at equivalent prices.