Sorare Fantasy Soccer signs a multi-year deal with the Premier League
Sorare fantasy soccer game has partnered with the Premier League, licensing the Sorare players to buy, collect, and sell digital sports cards of Premier League players. Both partners announced the 4-year deal on Jan 30.
Sorare fans thrilled with the new licensing agreement
The agreement allows the Sorare players to release digital cards from all the 20 Premier League clubs as part of their game. The players will also have an additional way to connect with their favorite soccer clubs and players.
New Game Features
The players now have the authority to buy, collect, sell, and build a whole team, just like a team manager. The transactions can only be through officially licensed digital player cards, and the teams can now play and compete with other Sorare teams in the free fantasy soccer game and win rewards.
The Sorare managers can play in the British Premier League or other global football leagues. Sorare has expanded the reach of sports in the web3 space, partnering with more than 300 global football clubs open to team managers.
The partnership activated new gameplay features that include draft-based gameplay, league-specific competitions, and capped-mode competitions. The existing Sorare gameplay includes five-player lineups and bi-weekly Game Week schedules. The games are free to play with no additional costs. Here are steps on how players can now play leagues on Sorare:
- Draft eight players from all the teams available in the Sorare database
- Optimize your team by scouting, selling, buying, and trading the digital card players at your disposal
- Select a five-a-side team and enter any competition of your choice
- Compete with other managers for rewards with performance based on your players’ real-life performance
Reaping From the Partnership
Sorare started discussions about a possible licensing partnership in Oct. 2022. However, Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia said the discussion was taking longer than anticipated as Premier League had a running NFT licensing deal with another fantasy soccer firm. There were rumors that the deal was worth £30 million, but Julia declined to share specific financial details.
This collaboration brings the most played free-to-play fantasy football game players to connect more with the Premier League, the world’s most-watched football competition.
The Premier League Chief Executive, Richard Masters, said that the relationship between fans and their favorite players and teams is evolving. Hence, the Premier League is developing new ways to engage with the fans.
The future of the industry
The partnership has come up despite the news that the NFT economy is undergoing hard times. A recent analysis shows that NFTs selling price in Dec 2022 had dropped by 63% compared to the selling prices in Dec 2021. The NFT trading volumes have also decreased as the overall sales dropped by 78% in Dec 2022, which is $678.2 million from $3.1 billion in Dec. 2021.
Julia stated that Sorare had performed differently from the rest of the NFT space. The platform’s total card exchange doubled to $500 million in 2022 from $270 million in 2021. However, the players have shifted from paid-for games to free-to-play mode.
