After Serie A, also the Premier League: the 20 English clubs in Sorare’s fantasy football with the NFTs

“We want to build the biggest company in the fantasy sports world,” he told us Nicholas Julia when we met him in the Paris office of Sorare, of which he is co-founder and current CEO.

And his company seems definitely on track to achieve that goal: founded in 2018, today it has over 150 employees, two offices (the other is in New York) and over 3 million users in 180 countries who play on its platform which combines fantasy sports (at the moment, soccer, basketball and baseball) with the blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs. Sorare is still classified as a startup and has recently raised a round of 680 million series B financing dollars, arriving at a valuation of 4.3 billion.

The latest deal: 4 years in the Premier League

On Italian Tech we have already explained in detail (here) how this sort of fantasy football 2.0 works: simplifying, users have at their disposal, free or for a fee, cards that reproduce the various players, different in terms of rarity and characteristics, form their own team, challenge each other and the results depend on the performance of the athletes in the real world. Like fantasy football, but with the addition of a thriving and profitable card trading.

To give life to their teams, from today members can also choose among the Premier League footballers, thanks to a four-year partnership that allows Sorare to release the digital cards of the players of all 20 teams in the British top division. The Premier is only the latest among the major European leagues to enter the orbit of the French company, after Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A: “It’s a truly global competition and has been home to so many iconic moments and players over the past 30 years – Julia recalled when announcing the deal – We’re football fans too and this partnership is something we’ve dreamed of ever since we founded Sorare. We are extremely proud to have started collaborations with 3 of the biggest sports leagues in the world”.

Bringing NBA basketball closer to the Europeans

The last reference is to major leagues of baseball and in particular at theNBAwho are in fact part of the Sorare galaxy: “They were a little jealous of the success and global reach of football – Julia told us smiling, on the occasion of the return of American basketball to France – And the agreement with us was also born from here, from the desire to grow globally in terms of notoriety and public”.

Bringing him home wasn’t easy: “We’re Europeans, and it’s not always easy for us persuade Americans to invest here – Julia confessed to us – To finalize the agreements with the NBA, it was useful for us to have close investors who know them (such as the Californian Accel and Benchmark, ed) and we also got a hand from ambassadors such as tennis player Serena Williamswho physically called NBA executives to help us in the negotiations”.

“We are not a game for the rich”

Sorare’s numbers certainly contributed to the success, not only those of users but also those relating to the money that the company is able to move: if 2021 had closed with around 270 million euros in transactions, in 2022 it reached 500 million. And yet, Julia does not want to hear about a pastime for the rich: “Our aim is to democratize sport, to ensure that everyone can be a coach, buy players, compose a team, build their own tradition over time”. To prove it, according to him, there would be the fact that “87% of members are non-paying”, that is, they play with the cards that are assigned to them when the profile is created. And if you decide to spend, it is not necessary to spend staggering sums: “It is true that there are cards that can even be exchanged for 600 euros, but the average value is around 10”.

Sorare exploits the blockchain to “ensure authenticity and for portability”, but “it is not mandatory to use crypto for transactions” and the value of each individual card depends on various factors: the quality of the player and his performance day after day (obviously), the trades he is able to generate, the its history as an NFT (how it’s made, who the previous owners were, etc.) and its rarity. Yes why not all are created in the same number of copies digital and of some there are only 10 specimens worldwide.

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Contact with the real world and the future

For a couple of years now, the universe of what were once simple stickers has been digitized and has found its place among the NFTs (an example is those of the American Top Shot, dedicated to NBA players), but what Julia likes about her company is that she wouldn’t have lost contact with the real world: “Our members can organize matches or even entire personalized championships among friends”, which is a bit like going to play soccer when you don’t feel like going to play soccer. Moreover, “it’s not like a video game where you are forced to be in front of a screen to participate: you create your team, you deploy it, the players play and you can do other things”. What’s more, “you can win experiences in the real world, such as tickets for matches (recently for Barcelona-Real Madrid, ed)”.

As for the future, Julia, who is 37 and from Perpignan, one of the homelands of rugby, does not exclude limits: “We are thinking of expanding to other sports, all those who have a following and fame worldwide are fine, whose male or female athletes are famous everywhere, such as tennis or Formula 1”. Furthermore, the idea is also to offer possibilities to use players’ cards outside the Sorare platform. What do you mean? “We are imagining the card as the entrance card to a club: for example, if you have a footballer’s card and that footballer scores, it arrives on your smartphone a real-time notification, you click and you can see the action of the goal immediately. Or it can be used to pre-purchase a shirt, a scarf or other exclusive merchandising or even in a simple and fast mobile game, perhaps to take penalties or free kicks or to compete for free throws”.

And a real video game won’t you? “We can’t do that, because Electronic Arts pretty much has all the rights,” Julia replied with a smile. She didn’t add “not yet”, but maybe she thought so.

@capoema