Sorare is a

fantasy sport A fantasy sport (also known less commonly as rotisserie or roto) is a game, often played using the internet, where participants assemble imaginary or virtual teams composed of proxies of real players of a professional sport. These teams compete ba ...

cryptocurrency-based video game. It was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort. There are 3 sports in Sorare:

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appro ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

. It is available for Android,

iOS Ios, Io or Nio (, ; ; locally Nios, Νιός) is a Greek island in the Cyclades group in the Aegean Sea. Ios is a hilly island with cliffs down to the sea on most sides. It is situated halfway between Naxos and Santorini. It is about long an ...

and

web browsers A web browser, often shortened to browser, is an application for accessing websites. When a user requests a web page from a particular website, the browser retrieves its files from a web server and then displays the page on the user's scree ...

Concept

Players compose and manage virtual

teams A team is a group of individuals (human or non-human) working together to achieve their goal. As defined by Professor Leigh Thompson (academic), Leigh Thompson of the Kellogg School of Management, " team is a group of people who are interd ...

of five players with digital player cards based on the

cryptocurrency A cryptocurrency (colloquially crypto) is a digital currency designed to work through a computer network that is not reliant on any central authority, such as a government or bank, to uphold or maintain it. Individual coin ownership record ...

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (abbreviation: ETH) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capitalization. It is open-s ...

". Some of the cards are digital collectibles (limited, rare, super-rare, and unique cards). These cards are

Non-Fungible Tokens In economics and law, fungibility is the property of something whose individual units are considered fundamentally interchangeable with each other. For example, the fungibility of money means that a $100 bill (note) is considered entirely equi ...

(NFTs) so they cannot be duplicated. Teams are ranked based on the performance of their players in the real world, as it is common in traditional fantasy sports. These points are calculated utilizing a scoring matrix taking third-party data from Opta, where each player can score up to a maximum of 100 points depending on how they perform. This is also very similar to other fantasy football leagues where users keep the same players on their team every season, unless they choose to trade, drop, or sign new ones.

Development

Sorare operates on the

blockchain network, and each player card is represented as a

non-fungible token A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique digital identifier that is recorded on a blockchain and is used to certify ownership and authenticity. It cannot be copied, substituted, or subdivided. The ownership of an NFT is recorded in the blockchai ...

(NFT). Sorare has signed licensing deals with leagues, such as the

K League K League () is South Korea's professional football league. It includes the first division K League 1 and the second division K League 2. Clubs competing in the K League have won a record total of twelve AFC Champions League Elite, AFC Champions ...

and clubs such as

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

, to allow the cards to have official branding, and to use player photos and names.

History

In May 2019, the company announced a pre-seed round of €550,000, including the technology entrepreneur

Xavier Niel Xavier Niel (; born 25 August 1967) is a French billionaire businessman. He is involved in the telecommunications and technology industry and is the founder and majority shareholder of the French Internet service provider and mobile operator Il ...

. In July 2020, the company raised $4 million with

German football Association football, Football is the most popular sport in Germany with 57% of the population declaring interest in watching it. The German Football Association ( or ) is the sport's national governing body, with 6.6 million members (ro ...

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

champion André Schürrle, among others. In December 2020, the company raised another €3.5 million with

champion

Gerard Piqué Gerard Piqué Bernabeu (born 2 February 1987) is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back. He is considered to be one of the best defenders of his generation. Initially a talented student athlete at Barcelona's La ...

, among others. In September 2021, the company raised $680 million Series B round, which valued the company at $4.3 billion. Also in September, Sorare formalized an agreement with the Spanish football league for a multi-year partnership. The agreement covers the edition of virtual cards for players playing in La Liga and Liga. On May 12, 2022, Sorare signed a partnership with

Major League Baseball Major League Baseball (MLB) is a professional baseball league composed of 30 teams, divided equally between the National League (baseball), National League (NL) and the American League (AL), with 29 in the United States and 1 in Canada. MLB i ...

to continue to develop sports on its platform. The launch of the game based on baseball and MLB was made on July 19, 2022. In September 2022, Sorare signed a multi-year deal with the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

(

NBA The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball league in North America composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada). The NBA is one of the major professional sports leagues in the United States and Ca ...

) and the

National Basketball Players Association The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) is the labor union that represents National Basketball Association (NBA) players. It was founded in 1954, making it the oldest trade union of the four major professional sports leagues in the U ...

(NBPA). In November 2022,

Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés "Leo" Messi (; born 24 June 1987) is an Argentine professional Association football, footballer who plays as a forward (association football), forward for and Captain (association football), captains both Major League Soccer ...

joined Sorare as an investor and brand ambassador. Other investors include

Kylian Mbappé Kylian Mbappé Lottin (born 20 December 1998) is a French professional Association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football), forward for club Real Madrid CF, Real Madrid and Captain (association football), captains ...

and

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American former professional tennis player. She was ranked as the List of WTA number 1 ranked singles tennis players, world No. 1 in women's singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WT ...

. On January 30, 2023, Sorare signed a partnership with the

English Premier League The Premier League is a professional association football league in England and the highest level of the English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Football Lea ...

for the purchase and use of official Premier League-licensed NFTs. It laid off 13% of staff in May 2024.

References

External links

* {{official website, https://sorare.com/ 2019 video games Association football video games Ethereum tokens Browser games Digital collectible card games Fantasy sports Video games developed in France