Sorare

Sorare is a fantasy game of football, where players buy, sell, trade, and manage a virtual team with digital player cards. The game uses blockchain technology based on Ethereum and was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort.

Sorare
Developer(s)Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort
Publisher(s)Sorare
Release2019
Genre(s)Sports management game

Concept

Players, as managers, compose virtual teams of five football players, from blockchain cards on the Sorare platform. Teams are ranked based, on the performance of their players on the real-world soccer pitch, and attributed points, just like traditional fantasy football.

Some of the cards are licensed digital collectibles (limited, rare, super-rare and unique cards). The use of blockchain technology means that the digital cards have provable scarcity.[1]

Development

Sorare operates on Ethereum's underlying blockchain network in order to secure the ownership and distribution of cards. The supply of cards is limited and cards cannot be altered, duplicated, or deleted. Each player card is represented as a non-fungible token (NFT)[2] using the ERC-721 token standard on Ethereum. Each player card is unique and is owned personally by the gamer, validated through the blockchain, allowing its value to appreciate or depreciate based on the market.

The licensing partnerships Sorare signs with leagues, such as the K League and clubs such as Real Madrid, allows the Sorare cards to have the official branding with the season's player photos and player names.

In May 2019, the company announced a pre-seed round of €550k, including the technology entrepreneur Xavier Niel.[3]

In July 2020, the company raised $4 million with German football World Cup champion André Schürrle, among others.[4] They are also backed by Ubisoft, E-Ventures, Partech & Consensys.

In December 2020, the company raised another €3.5 million with World Cup champion Gerard Piqué, among others. [5]

Clubs

As of 29 June 2021, 140 clubs are present in the game in total.[6] This marks an increase of over 50 additional club sides compared with that in March. A total of 30 clubs from Major League Soccer clubs are without license.[6] Sorare has instead signed a deal with the Major League's Players Association, meaning portraits of every player with the kits of those teams appear in the game except the image rights of MLS and its clubs.[7]

The Belgian Jupiler Pro League has licensed Sorare.[8]

Ecosystem

Sorare allows access to their public data via an API. Several sites use this data to propose information or side games.

Sorare Data: Data website that collects players scores and cards prices to help manager with their decisions.

Sorare Brag: Side game that allows to create private leagues and have a matchup each weekend versus another manager.

Sorare Mega: Side game to face other managers via Matchmaking with team size of 3, 5, 8 or 11 Sorare cards.

References
  1. Tracy, Jeff. "Trading cards have far outperformed the S&P 500 over the last 12 years". Axios.
  2. Flyingshiba. "5 Reasons Gaming and NFT's will Make a Huge Impact in the Future". Flyingshiba. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
  3. "Xavier Niel investit dans l'une des pépites françaises de la blockchain". Les Echos (French daily newspaper) (in French). 2019-05-15. Retrieved 2020-08-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  4. Coulter, Martin. "Fantasy soccer startup Sorare nets $4 million in a funding round backed by German striker Andre Schurrle". Business Insider. Retrieved 2020-08-07.
  5. "Gerard Piqué entra en el negocio de 'futbol fantasy'". La Vanguardia. December 18, 2020.
  6. "Sorare". sorare.com.
  7. "MLSPA Players Meet Blockchain on Sorare Fantasy Soccer Game". MLS Players Association. Retrieved 2020-10-26.
  8. "Pro League extends Sorare partnership". www.proleague.be (in Dutch). Retrieved 2020-10-26.
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