Digital sports gaming company Sorare announced a four-year licensing deal with the Premier League Monday, bringing top-flight English teams’ stars to its online fantasy platform.
Based in France, Sorare previously added Bundesliga, La Liga, MLS and Serie A sides to its roster of more than 300 sports organizations. Its core game allows users to buy player cards on the blockchain and enter them into limited-time competitions for various prizes. Rare versions of cards have sold for well over $100,000 each. Last year, Sorare expanded beyond soccer following agreements with MLB and the NBA.
The company said the UK is already one of its top markets. Financial details of the deal were not announced, though previous reports pegged the value at roughly £30 million ($37.2 million) per year.
Some reports also indicated that ConsenSys was previously close to an NFT contract with the league, only for the deal to fall apart amid a drop in crypto-related asset values during the second half of last year. The EPL has been linked with Dapper Labs regarding a video NFT deal, as companies like Dapper and Sorare continue adding sports partners while other companies have begun focusing elsewhere during the crypto winter. Ethereum-based NFT trading totaled roughly $500 million in December, according to The Block, down from $2.8 billion in December 2021.
“From the very beginning, we built Sorare for sports fans, not for crypto speculators,” a company spokesperson said via email, “so despite the 2022 market headwinds, we kept growing.” After launching its NBA product late last year, Sorare reached 650,000 monthly active users in December 2022. Crypto believers have gotten some good news of their own recently, with the price of Bitcoin up roughly 40% over the last month.
Sorare raised a $680 million Series B round in 2021, valuing the company at $4.3 billion. It has also attracted high-profile athlete investors, including Lionel Messi and Serena Williams.
“This partnership is something we’ve dreamt of since we founded the business,” Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia said in a statement announcing the Premier League tie-up. “It’s a major milestone for us as we pursue our goal to build a compelling global sports community for fans.”
Along with the Premier League expansion, Sorare recently launched a new “Amateur” competition built around drafting free player cards within a set points budget. An expansion of free-to-play access was part of a 2022 agreement with France’s national gambling authority. Previously, the UK Gambling Commission investigated whether Sorare’s game should be regulated as a form of gambling. The company has defended its model as being entirely new, citing the free cards, a lack of randomness when acquiring players, and the retention of cards after competitions.
“The way that supporters follow their favorite teams and players is evolving, and the Premier League is always looking for ways to engage with fans,” EPL chief executive Richard Masters said in a statement. “Sorare’s digital cards and innovative online game represent a new way for them to feel closer to the Premier League whether they are watching in the stadium or from around the world.”
