The Premier League has signed a new four-year deal with fantasy sports NFT platform Sorare and has acquired an equity stake in the Paris-based company, which was previously valued at $4.3B in 2021. Fans will be able to buy, sell, and trade digital cards of players from all 20 Premier League clubs and use their collectibles to build lineups for free-to-play fantasy soccer contests on platform. Sorare has more than 3 million active users, with about 15-20% of those users based in the U.S. after the company partnered with the NBA and MLB last year. Most of Sorare’s fantasy NFT offerings cover soccer given its existing deals with about 30 leagues including MLS, LaLiga, the Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue 1, the Dutch Eredivisie and the J League. The Premier League joins the NBA and MLB as leagues to have equity in Sorare, whose investors include SoftBank and LionTree as well as Serena Williams, Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappé.
Britain's gambling watchdog "has been investigating Sorare since 2021 to assess whether its game amounts to gambling." Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia said last week that the probe "was still ongoing." Elsewhere, France's gambling regulator "told the company in November to make changes to the game, including expanding its free-to-play option" (REUTERS, 1/30).
The deal comes after the bankruptcy of crypto platform FTX "led to renewed scrutiny of partnerships between sports and the nascent crypto sector." Julia said that his company "was different to other crypto start-ups because its tokens had utility beyond mere price speculation," in a fantasy game that has attracted more than 3 million sign-ups since the company was founded in 2018. He "would not provide an active user figure" (FINANCIAL TIMES, 1/30).
