The English Premier League has sealed a multi-million dollar deal with Sorare, the blockchain fantasy sports game, in anticipation that trading digital collectibles will remain popular despite current crypto market trends.
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Over the past years, Sorare brought an innovative use case to Ethereum-based fantasy sports and digital card trading which gives fans a chance to mint, collect and exchange player cards with fellow users in different NFT markets.
Breaking down the deal
Through this exclusive, multi-year agreement with the Premier League, players of the game will be granted unprecedented access to purchase and use authentic Premier League-licensed NFTs.
Sorare is introducing two new features to their game: league-specific player cards and a “financial fair play” feature that stops users from building all-star teams.
Sorare is making a substantial up-front payment to the Premier League for licensing rights. Then, both Sorare and the Premier League will share in the profits generated by each digital card sale.
On Monday, Sorare announced in a blog post that the English soccer league has entered an agreement with their NFT-based fantasy sports game. As a result of this deal, purchasers can now assemble virtual teams to participate in a fantasy version of the competition.
This groundbreaking deal, worth an astonishing $150 million dollars, will last for four years, CityAM stated.
Sorare mints digital cards of players from the Premier League on the Ethereum blockchain. The platform has long used ERC-721 token standard for its NFT player cards, which fans can collect and trade and use to play on the platform’s free-to-play fantasy sports league.
In October 2022, Sorare made headlines after being the topic of rumors circulating its potential negotiation with the Premier League. However, Nicolas Julia – CEO of Sorare – revealed that it took considerably longer than anticipated to sort out as the top-tier English soccer league had already inked an NFT licensing deal with another firm.
Sorare provides a free competition where 3 million users collect soccer player NFTs to form fantasy teams and earn rewards based on real-world performance. Additionally, users can buy limited NFTs with cryptocurrency for greater rewards, and trade NFTs with others.
Sorare raised $680 million in a Series B round with investors such as SoftBank Vision Fund and LionTree, valuing the company at $4.3 billion in September.