''Sorare'' is a football fantasy game where players buy, sell, trade, and manage a

virtual team A virtual team (also known as a geographically dispersed team, distributed team, or remote team) usually refers to a group of individuals who work together from different geographic locations and rely on communication technology such as email, inst ...

with digital player cards. The game uses

blockchain A blockchain is a type of distributed ledger technology (DLT) that consists of growing lists of records, called ''blocks'', that are securely linked together using cryptography. Each block contains a cryptographic hash of the previous block, a ...

technology based on

Ethereum Ethereum is a decentralized, open-source blockchain with smart contract functionality. Ether (Abbreviation: ETH; sign: Ξ) is the native cryptocurrency of the platform. Among cryptocurrencies, ether is second only to bitcoin in market capita ...

and was developed in 2018 by Nicolas Julia and Adrien Montfort.

Concept

Players, as managers, compose virtual teams of five football players, from blockchain cards on the Sorare platform. Teams are ranked based on the performance of their players on the real-world soccer pitch, and attributed points, as is common in traditional fantasy football. These points are calculated utilising 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 in that users keep the same players on their team every season, unless they choose to trade, drop, or sign new ones. Some of the cards are licensed digital collectibles (limited, rare, super-rare and unique cards). The use of blockchain technology means that the limited number of digital cards have provable scarcity and cannot be altered, duplicated, or deleted. Sorare allows access to their public data via an

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how ...

. Several sites use this data to propose information or side games.

Development

Sorare operates on

's underlying blockchain network in order to secure the ownership and distribution of cards. Each player card is represented as a

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

(NFT) using the ERC-721 token standard on Ethereum. The

licensing A license (or licence) is an official permission or permit to do, use, or own something (as well as the document of that permission or permit). A license is granted by a party (licensor) to another party (licensee) as an element of an agreeme ...

partnerships Sorare signs with leagues, such as the K League and clubs such as

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

, allows the Sorare cards to have the official branding with the season's player photos and player names. As of 2 August 2022, over 280 clubs are present in the game. In May 2019, the company announced a pre-seed round of €550k, including the technology entrepreneur

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

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

German football Football (or "soccer") is the most popular sport in Germany. The German Football Association (german: Deutscher Fußball-Bund, link=no or ) is the sport's national governing body, with 6.6 million members (roughly eight percent of the popul ...

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 concept i ...

champion

André Schürrle André Horst Schürrle (; born 6 November 1990) is a German former professional footballer who played as a forward. He began his career at Mainz 05 in 2009, spending two years at the club before a £6.5 million transfer to Bayer 04 Leverku ...

, 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 one of the best defenders of his generation. Initially a highly promising student at La Masia, Piqué ...

, 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 organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world. MLB is composed of 30 total teams, divided equally between the National League (NL) and the American League (AL), ...

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 partnership with the

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

(

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

) and the

National Basketball Players Association The National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) is a 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 Uni ...

(NBPA). After a year of negotiations, the

allowed Sorare to use its logos while the NBPA licensed its players names, images and likeness rights to Sorare. In November 2022,

Lionel Messi Lionel Andrés Messi (; born 24 June 1987), also known as Leo Messi, is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a forward for club Paris Saint-Germain and captains the Argentina national team. Widely regarded as one of the ...

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

Kylian Mbappe Killian or Kilian, as a given name, is an Anglicized version of the Irish name Cillian. The name Cillian was borne by several early Irish saints including missionaries to Artois and Franconia and the author of the life of St Brigid. The name is s ...

and

Serena Williams Serena Jameka Williams (born September 26, 1981) is an American inactive professional tennis player. Considered among the greatest tennis players of all time, she was ranked world No. 1 in singles by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for ...

References

External links

Official website
{{Cryptocurrencies 2019 video games Association football video games Blockchains Browser games Digital collectible card games Fantasy sports Video games developed in France