UEFA Champions League Winners FC Bayern Munich Embrace Ethereum Blockchain for Tokenization

German football giant, FC Bayern Munich, is the latest entrant in the Ethereum-based fantasy soccer game platform called Sorare, which leverages non-fungible tokens (NFTs). 

The reigning UEFA Champions League winners become the third German club playing under the Bundesliga league to join Sorare, which has at least 100 licensed teams.

Tokenizing fantasy football

Sorare is a fantasy soccer video game founded on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to build their preferred teams and trade football player cards. These cards are limited and can be transferred as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Moreover, the cards earn points on the foundation of every player’s respective real-world weekly performance.

With FC Bayern Munich joining this bandwagon, Sorare users will be able to trade digital cards based on its top players like Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Müller, and Manuel Neuer, as well as create their own lineups. As per the announcement:

“People play Sorare because they love making new friends that are passionate about global football and scouting players and cheap cards that can become the next big things.”

Boosting blockchain adoption in the football arena

Nicolas Julia, Sorare CEO, applauded FC Bayern Munich’s decision to participate in the platform, noting that it was a major milestone. The reigning Bundesliga champion joins another European champion, Juventus, which enrolled in February.

By creating unique digital tokens and signing top football clubs to its fantasy platform, Sorare seeks to boost digital assets and blockchain adoption in daily life. The football player cards used are based on blockchain technology, and they comprise of built-in scarcity.

In February, the Spanish football giant, FC Barcelona, partnered with Chiliz, a fintech firm, to provide a blockchain-powered fan-engagement platform, which generated the Barca Fan Tokens (BAR). The tokenized engagement network was to be used by its more than 300 million global fans. Reportedly, in June, these tokens worth $1.3 million got sold out in two hours. 

Venture Capital Company Benchmark to Pump $50 Million into Ethereum-Based Fantasy Football Platform Sorare

Benchmark, a venture capital company that earlier backed Ebay Inc., Twitter Inc., and Uber Technologies, plans to invest a whopping $50 million into Ethereum-powered fantasy football platform Sorare. 

Sorare’s sales skyrocket by 130 times

Sorare is a fantasy soccer video game founded on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to build their preferred teams and trade football player cards.

These cards are limited and can be transferred as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Moreover, the cards earn points on the foundation of every player’s respective real-world weekly performance.

One of Sorare’s primary goals is to boost blockchain and digital asset adoption in daily life. This has been paid off because its sales have increased exponentially by 130 times from $50,000 in January 2020 to nearly $6.5 million this month. 

Benchmark, together with other investors like Reddit and Accel, intends to invest a total of $60 million into the platform as its popularity continues to grow.

Sorare hosts at least 4 billion football fans

Sorare is proving to be a force to be reckoned with in the NFT and fantasy football space because it is used by at least 4 billion football enthusiasts globally. 

Nicolas Julia, Sorare CEO, noted:

“Human beings have been collecting for centuries; it’s something we do. This is a product that could bring the crypto asset class to millions of people.”

Furthermore, the platform hosts top-ranked soccer clubs like Juventus. In November last year, reigning UEFA Champions League Winners FC Bayern Munich joined Sorare, giving its fans the chance to trade digital cards based on its top players like Robert Lewandowski, Thomas Muller, and Manuel Neuer. 

As more investments continue trickling into the Ethereum-based fantasy football platform, there is an enormous market to tap. NFTs are unique tokens compared to cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin because they are created in small batches to represent a digitally scarce item like football player cards. 

French Football Federation Explores Player NFT Cards in Partnership with Sorare

The French Football Federation has made history, connecting a partnership with blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare to create collectible digital cards for its National Team players.

Ranking as one of the first national teams featured on the growing collectible or Non-Fungible Token list, the ‘Le Bleus’ team cards, as the French team is often called, are billed to have similar utility the popular club tokens.

With the team cards, the performance of French players like Antoine Griezmann, Hugo Lloris, Ngolo Kante, Paul Pogba will be tokenised and registered on the blockchain for use in fantasy games. As each player has their strength and uniqueness, so are their performance statistics will be written. With the differences comes the rarity of the NFTs, and the entire tokenisation is based on the 2020 football season.

The growth of Non-Fungible Tokens over the past year has been mind-blowing, with scarce digital works of art being placed for sale at tremendous prices. These new digital collectables have created whole new economics that has helped push blockchain technology further into the mainstream limelight. Beeple, a digital artist who created the piece Everyday: the First 5,000 Days, was the most expensive artwork to date. The artwork was auctioned on Christie’s and sold for $63 million in Ethereum.

Sorare will auction at least five national team cards per player where the player’s total supply permits, and users can also win some of the cards in competitions organised by Sorare.

The 2020 Union of European Football Associations European Football Championship is underway. As a two-time champion in the competition in 1984, and 2000, the French National Team is also contesting. The team is one of the favourites to win the match drawing from their last victory in the 2018 FIFA World. 

Image source: Sorare

Soccer NFT Trading Platform Sorare to Complete the Largest Round of Financing in French Tech with $530M

Football start-up NFT platform Sorare reportedly will raise 450 million euros (approximately $532 million US dollars) in the financing, led by SoftBank.

The Paris-based digital football NFT trading platform Sorare is expected to be valued at more than $4 billion once completing this round of large-scale financing. The platform will become the seventeenth unicorn technology company in France. It seems that this financing will be the largest record in the French technology sector.

According to a report by Business Insider Wednesday, other potential investors include the European fund Atomico, the French fund Eurazeo with more than $27 billion in assets under management, and the fund Blisce established by the famous French entrepreneur and philanthropist Alexandre Mars.

In February, venture capital company Benchmark, which earlier backed Ebay Inc., Twitter Inc., and Uber Technologies, led a whopping $50 million into Ethereum-powered fantasy football platform Sorare in series A round.

Sorare is a fantasy soccer video game founded on the Ethereum blockchain in 2018 that enables users to build their preferred teams and trade football player cards.

Many well-known football teams in Europe, including Bayern Munich, Juventus, Real Madrid, and Liverpool, have launched their unique non-fungible tokens (NFT) on their platforms.

As reported by blockchain.news on June 15, The French Football Federation has made history, connecting a partnership with blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare to create collectable digital cards for its National Team players.

Spanish LaLiga League Joins Hands With Sorare to Launch NFTs for all Players

Spanish LaLiga league, the top football division in Spain whose top scorer is Lionel Messi with 474 goals, has partnered with Ethereum-based fantasy soccer game platform Sorare to establish non-fungible tokens (NFTs) for all its players. 

Per the announcement on Thursday:

“LaLiga fans, collectors and fantasy football players will for the first time be able to freely trade and play with digital cards of players from LaLiga.”

This partnership is seen as a stepping stone towards creating new revenue streams for LaLiga clubs. This league is home to world-class football clubs, such as FC Barcelona, Real Madrid, and Atletico Madrid.

Sorare has a mission of collaborating with the rest of the world’s top 20 football leagues like the English Premier League (EPL) by the end of 2022. 

Offering fans innovative and exciting experiences

According to LaLiga president, Javier Tebas:

“At LaLiga we are always looking for innovative ways to offer our fans new and exciting experiences and to broaden the appeal of our competition, the greatest in the world.”

On the other hand, the CEO and co-founder of Sorare Nicolas Julia stated:

“NFTs are the future of global sports fandom because they allow fans to come together and to feel ownership of the sports they love.”

Sorare is a fantasy soccer video game founded on the Ethereum blockchain that enables users to build their favourite teams and trade football player cards. These cards are limited and can be transferred as unique non-fungible tokens (NFTs). Moreover, the cards earn points on the foundation of every player’s respective real-world weekly performance.

By creating unique digital tokens and signing top football clubs to its fantasy platform, Sorare seeks to boost NFT and blockchain adoption in daily life. The football player cards used are based on blockchain technology, and they comprise built-in scarcity.

In July, Sorare sought to raise $530 million in financing to enhance its NFT adoption objective. 

German Bundesliga Features in Blockchain Fantasy Football Platform Sorare

Sorare, an Ethereum-backed fantasy football platform, has announced its latest partnership with the top two leagues in Germany, the top-flight Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 DE.

Dedicated to helping rebrand the utilities of blockchain technology by remodelling the offerings of traditional fantasy gaming platforms, the partnership between Sorare and the Bundesliga leagues will help to broaden the former’s ecosystem. 

“We’re honoured to announce our newest partnership with the Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2. DE,” Sorare said in a statement, “The Bundesliga is an iconic football league and home to some of the most exciting clubs and footballers in the world. Following our partnership with the German national team, we’re excited to further expand in Germany and welcome football fans who know all about celebrating their passion.”

Sorare creates digital collectables for each sports team onboarded on its platform. The same items will be done for each Bundesliga team, including Bayern Munich, Borussia Dortmund, and RB Leipzig, to mention a few. All players in the league will also be represented. However, Sorare said these collectables will not be ready until the end of October.

Many football teams are beginning to leverage the capabilities of digital currencies to engage more with their fans spread worldwide. The embrace of blockchain technology by individual German football teams with Sorare predates the Bundesliga partnership, as Bayern Munich notably tapped Sorare’s tokenization program back in November last year.

The majority of the top football clubs are also building their fan tokens using the platform introduced by Socios and Chiliz, with prominent names including FC Barcelona, Paris Saint Germaine, Juventus FC, and Atletico Madrid, amongst others. While the integration and utility definition of soccer teams using blockchain is still in its infancy, it has notably generated enough traction, as shown by the venture capital funding from big investors in the industry.

Sorare Inks Partnership With MLB to Float Fantasy Baseball Game with NFT

Sorare has partnered with Major League Baseball to create a fantasy baseball game featuring Non-Fungible Tokens (NFT).

Through the partnership, which also involves MLB Players, players can create teams with NFTs representing Major League Gaming players. The created team can then be used to enter tournaments through which the players’ real-life performance is automatically reflected in the game.

While the move is the first of its kind between Sorare and MLB, the partnership will help the players to connect more with their MLB icons and teams in real life with a lot of rewards associated. The Sorare NFT-based gaming model started with football and the startup has seen tremendous growth in its platform thus far.

Besides generating $325 million in sales in 2021, up more than 3885% when compared on a Year-on-Year (YoY) basis, the outfit has seen as much as 32% growth month-on-month over the past year. The growth shows the massive embrace of the Sorare NFT-backed fantasy games and with the MLB version set to make its debut this summer, the catch for players is all the more enhanced.

“The connection between Americans and baseball is enduring. And baseball has always been on the cutting edge of new technologies and innovations, so we’re proud that MLB and the MLBPA have chosen Sorare to deliver an NFT MLB Game to fans globally,” said Nicolas Julia, CEO of Sorare, in a statement, adding that:

“MLB has been at the forefront of interactive games for decades, while baseball has some of the oldest and most established forms of sports memorabilia… Today, as digital engagement and technology evolve for a new generation, our partnership will help a new and broader fanbase to connect with America’s pastime.”

At a time when the crypto ecosystem is experiencing a very massive price turmoil, playable and thrilling games like what Sorare has to offer have been identified as one of the ways to draw mainstream participation in the blockchain world.

NBA Partners with Sorare for NFT-Based Basketball Fantasy Game

To enhance the fan experience and render more interaction, the National Basketball Association (NBA) has partnered with the web3 fantasy game platform Sorare.

In a statement, the NBA pointed out that the fantasy basketball game will allow fans to develop a lineup of NFT-powered digital collectables based on their favourite teams and players. 

Moreover, earning points will depend on NBA players’ real-life performance. Per the announcement:

“Sorare will launch the first officially licensed, free-to-play digital collectible-based fantasy basketball game, which will be released this fall for the NBA’s 2022-23 season.”

Through the strategic partnership, Sorare will be granted the right to use official NBA team and league logos on its products.

The NBA sees the basketball fantasy game as a stepping stone toward expanding its fan base, according to NBA commissioner Adam Silver.

He added:

“Our partnership with Sorare will give NBA fans an entirely new way to engage with our teams and players. With Sorare’s emerging NFT fantasy platform, we see significant opportunities to broaden our community of fans and grow NBA basketball around the world.”

By leveraging Sorare’s platform, the basketball fantasy game will be accessible to more than two million registered users across 185 nations.

Nicholas Julia, Sorare’s CEO and co-founder, pointed out:

 “The NBA has been at the forefront of digital experiences and collectibles, and our game gives basketball fans the ultimate sports entertainment experience, where they can play like a general manager, own their game, and foster real-world connections.”

By creating unique digital tokens and signing top leagues and clubs to its fantasy platform, Sorare seeks to boost digital assets and blockchain adoption in daily life. 

For instance, Sorare created an NFT-based fantasy baseball game after joining hands with Major League Baseball (MLB) earlier this year. 

MLB is Looking to Hire an Expert to Expand its Metaverse Presence

Major League Baseball (MLB), an American professional baseball organization and the oldest major professional sports league in the world is looking for an expert in Metaverse and Web3.0-related innovations as it looks to expand its current presence in the emerging ecosystem.

According to the details shared on LinkedIn, the MLB job title is “Licensing Manager- Digital Games, NFT, Metaverse.” The hired professional will be undertaking many tasks including the development and execution of partnership strategy in expanding digital portfolio areas including, NFT, Metaverse, wearable technology, and AR/VR strategy.

While this job description already suggests the league association is ready to go all out in the Web3.0 space, the profession will also be tasked with identifying partnerships with marketplaces, tools, and platforms to create best-in-class product experience for baseball fans to access and engage with the league’s expanding digital collections.

While the entire clamor for the metaverse is just building momentum, MLB’s involvement in the space has been quite emphatic. Besides inking a partnership with Candy Digital back in January, a linkup that opened it up to start selling NFTs at the time, MLB is also the official baseball partner of Sorare.

As reported by Blockchain.news in May, the Sorare partnership positions the MLB to help create teams with NFTs representing Major League Gaming players. The created team can then be used to enter tournaments through which the players’ real-life performance is automatically reflected in the game.

Like many Web2.0 organizations, the hiring move from the MLB is considered a bold step and a worthy investment that can generally help in advancing the course of Web3.0. While the role has already seen as many as 108 applicants according to the LinkedIn update, the MLB has not come out to announce it has filled the role as of the time of writing.

Bitget Announces New Partnership with Football Legend Lionel Messi

Bitget, one of the world’s fastest-growing cryptocurrency exchanges platforms for trading crypto derivatives has announced a collaboration with Argentina football star and winner of seven Ballon d’Or Awards, Lionel Andres Messi in a news article.

Through this collaboration, Bitget will provide Messi supporters with a special chance to learn more about Web 3.0 and the possibilities of trading cryptocurrencies on the exchange. Additionally, it is agreed upon that the collaboration will enable both sides to dedicate themselves to more significant initiatives that go beyond cryptocurrencies and football.

“I wanted to express my gratitude to Bitget for inspiring me to get involved in the cryptocurrency community. I have faith that both parties will launch worthwhile initiatives and provide web 3 to sports enthusiasts “Says Leo Messi.

“The partnerships we choose to attempt to portray the richness and diversity of our platform community. They let cryptocurrency traders into the field, and we let sports fans into Web 3”, says Bitget’s managing director, Gracy Chen.

Bitget is a leading cryptocurrency exchange that was founded in 2018. With over 55,000 professional traders and nearly 1.1 million followers, One-Click Copy Trade, Bitget’s main social trading tool, demonstrates the company’s substantial work and success in the social trading of cryptocurrencies.

While many cryptocurrency platforms are battling the uncertainty brought on by the recent collapse of the digital currency ecosystem. Bitget asserted that it is in a good position to increase its workforce by 100% before the end of the year.

Lionel Messi’s partnership is not the first to be occurring in the digital space. In related news, Usain Bolt, an 11-time world champion and eight-time Olympic gold winner, has partnered with Step App to elevate fitness and exercise through the use of Web3 and the metaverse.

In 2020, Italian soccer giant, Juventus Football Club enters into a licensing agreement with Sorare, a blockchain-based fantasy football company. As part of the partnership, Juventus will provide extremely rare digital collector cards of some of the team’s most famous superstars, including five-time Ballon d’Or winner Christiano Ronaldo while Sorare will provide digital cards that are created on the Ethereum technology.

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