Sorare NFT football trading card game has partnered with the English Premier League in a multi-year licensing agreement.
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Sorare, the $4.3 billion fantasy soccer game, has signed a multi-year contract with the English Premier League that will see the release of official player cards for the license of the world’s top soccer league.
Players of the game will be able to purchase and use official NFTs licensed from the English Premier League under an exclusive multi-year agreement.
Paris startup Sorare, which has 3 million users worldwide, allows people to compete in five-player fantasy football games. The chances of success depend on the real-time performance of the players on the field.
Sorare said it’s also launching two new features in the game. These include the ability to compete with league player cards and a “Financial Fair Play” feature that prevents users from selecting all-star teams.
It was first rumored that Surari was in talks with the English Premier League – the top tier of men’s soccer in England – about a licensing agreement in October 2022. Surari CEO Nicholas Goulia said things took longer than expected because the Premier League He had an existing NFT licensing deal with another company.
Sky News I mentioned earlier The deal amounted to £30 million. Julia declined to release details about the financial terms and length of the deal.
This news comes despite a sharp downturn in NFT trading activity.
The values of NFTs – or non-fungible tokens – have plummeted amid a slump in cryptocurrency prices known as “crypto winter,” which has been exacerbated in recent months by Major FTX exchange bankruptcy.
According to data site CryptoSlam, the average NFT sale price in December 2022 was $143.22, down 63% from $383.73 in December 2021.
Trading volumes have also decreased significantly. Overall NFT sales fell 78% in December to $678.2 million from $3.1 billion a year earlier.
Julia said that Souray “goes very differently than the rest of the space.” Card exchanges on the platform totaled $500 million last year, nearly doubling from $270 million in 2021.
However, the company has noticed a shift in usage as players are more inclined to use a “free-to-play” mode where they don’t have to compete with paid cards.
About 87% of Sorare players “don’t spend money on the platform,” Julia said.
This raised an obvious question about the sustainability of Sorare’s model: How does it make money when most of its users aren’t engaging?
For his part, Julia said that users with large purchasing power were enough to generate income. Sorare takes an unspecified portion of all transactions via its service.
It should be noted that Sorare is the third largest NFT pool worldwide, according to data from CryptoSlam. CryptoSlam’s numbers show that the company processes close to $1 million in transactions in a 24-hour period.
The Premier League’s partnership with Sorare adds to a slew of deals between sports leagues and crypto platforms.
Surari himself has previously announced deals with Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.
Some agreements, such as Crypto.com’s deal for naming rights to the Staples Center arena in Los Angeles and FTX’s now-defunct sponsorship of the Miami-Dade Arena, have soured amid plummeting cryptocurrency prices.
Surari was sheltered from the fallout from the cryptocurrency-focused sports advertising crash, Julia said, as his company focused on licensing intellectual property rather than sponsorship.
The French startup was valued by investors at $4.3 billion in September 2021. Sorar is backed by notable names including Japan. Softbank and venture capital firms Accel and Benchmark. It also counts sports stars Lionel Messi, Serena Williams and Kylian Mbappe as contributors.
Sorare has not been without controversies and has come under fire over accusations that he encourages gambling.
The UK Gambling Commission is investigating the company “to determine whether Sorare.com requires an operating license or whether the services it provides do not constitute gambling,” according to October 8, 2021. Notice.
Julia said he was unable to provide an update on the UK investigation process.
In November, the startup committed to making some changes to its platform following action by France’s national gambling authority. These included promotion of free game items. The company is required to implement these procedures by March 31st.
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