French startup Sorare has signed a four-year licensing partnership with the Premier League. This is an important move for the company as the English football league is one of the most-watched sports leagues in the world.
Sorare is a fantasy sports gaming experience based on NFTs, or non-fungible tokens. In particular, Sorare has partnered with many football leagues so that it can create trading cards representing football players.
Each card is registered as a unique token on the Ethereum blockchain. Sorare players can buy and sell cards from other players. They can then put together a lineup of five players and earn points based on real-life performances. Sorare frequently issues new cards on the platforms that users can buy to add to their personal collections — that’s how the company generates revenue.
And the startup has been quite successful so far. It raised a gigantic $680 million Series B round and signed partnerships with many clubs and football organizations, including Spain’s LaLiga, Germany’s Bundesliga and Italy’s Serie A. The Premier League is a nice addition to this list of organizations.
With today’s new partnership with the Premier League, Sorare users will find all 20 clubs on the platform. There will also be league-specific competitions.
“The Premier League is a truly global competition and has been the home to so many iconic moments and players over the last 30 years. As football fans ourselves, this partnership is something we’ve dreamt of since we founded the business,” Sorare co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia said in a statement.
“It’s a major milestone for us as we pursue our goal to build a compelling global sports community for fans and we’re extremely proud to have now partnered with three of the biggest sports leagues in the world: the Premier League, NBA and MLB. We’re incredibly excited and can’t wait to see fans play with Premier League cards in our tournaments.”
As for sports fans who don’t particularly enjoy football, Sorare also teamed up with the NBA and MLB over the past few months. While the MLB season hasn’t started yet, Sorare’s NBA game is already live. It works more or less like the fantasy football game.