- Sorare secures first soccer league partnership
- Platform already has deals with Liverpool, Bayern Munich, PSG and Juventus
- More than US$130m worth of NFT cards already sold this year
Spanish soccer’s La Liga has entered the non-fungible tokens (NFT) market in a partnership with blockchain digital collectibles and fantasy platform Sorare.
The pair will collaborate to offer users the opportunity to trade and play with digital cards of players from the top two tiers of Spanish soccer.
It is intended that the collaboration will help clubs to expand their international brands, including in the US and Asia, by reaching new fans, while also opening up a new revenue stream.
Sorare said the NFT card space has sold more than US$130 million in cards this year.
The tie-up sees La Liga become the first of the elite European soccer leagues to sign a major NFT partnership. Last month, Sportico reported that Dapper Labs, the maker of the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Top Shot digital collectibles, had secured a deal with La Liga to create NFTs.
For Sorare, the deal deepens the company’s ties to soccer. The platform says it now has ‘the majority of the top 100 football clubs in the world’ under licence, including European heavyweights Liverpool, Bayern Munich, Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) and Juventus. The company’s backers also include Fifa World Cup winners Gerard Piqué and Antoine Griezmann, as well as former Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand.
Sorare plans to partner with every one of the world’s top 20 soccer leagues by the end of 2022.
Javier Tebas, president of La Liga, said: “This partnership with Sorare, the most exciting sports NFT projects today, enables us to reach new audiences globally and gives existing fans additional ways they can get involved with the players and the clubs they love.”
Nicolas Julia, chief executive and co-founder of Sorare, added: “NFTs are the future of global sports fandom because they allow fans to come together and to feel ownership of the sports they love.
“This partnership isn’t just a sign of Sorare’s growing leadership in the NFT sports space, it is a major signal of intent by the sporting world that it sees Sorare’s unique ability to connect fans with sports through NFTs as a crucial part of their plans for the future.”
