Opinion

Is Sorare Football Taking Fantasy Football to a New NFT Level

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Fantasy football has been with us for decades and the format is a winner. It has millions of players worldwide and gives you and me a chance to test out our managerial skills. We all believe we can win the World Cup if we were in charge, and fantasy football gives us the opportunity to win glory. Now, Sorare Football may have added a genius move to the format.

Let’s take a deep dive into the new features they are introducing.

NFTs and Fantasy Football

In 1896 football cards were introduced by the Marcus & Company Tobacco in Manchester, England. As they evolved rare cards were introduced some of which have value today. Although football cards are not as valuable as American football cards, rare ones are still valued for hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Now Sorare Football which runs on a blockchain is digitalising its own football cards through non-fungible tokens (NFTs). These are tokenised on the Ethereum Blockchain.

An NFT is a unique digital creation. I.e., there is only one like it in the world. Collecting NFTs of all kinds have become hugely popular over the last few years, and many cite them as having the potential of Bitcoin in terms of investment potential.

Sorare Fantasy Football

Unlike traditional fantasy football where a player would select from a list of names, now you buy the respective digital collectable card in the form of an NFT. There are only a set number of cards for any player in the Sorare Fantasty Football league, with each one using blockchain technology to lock in the uniqueness of each card and protect the value.

The cards themselves can be traded like cryptocurrency. So should you land a valuable card you may find the value increases over time like cryptocurrency and of course, the value can go down. It all depends in many ways on player performance.

Sorare has published a rarity chart that grades cards by colour depending on their rarity:

  • Limited (Yellow) –1000 of these cards are produced each season.
  • Rare (Red) –100 cards produced each season.
  • Super Rare (Blue)–10 cards produced each season.
  • Unique (Black / Brown)–1 card produced each season.

Each season new cards will be minted.

Sorare works on a five-man team rather than the normal eleven, and there are several tournaments you can play in rather than just following league results as most fantasy formats do. Prizes from playing in the main tournaments and not the ‘Rookie League’ include Ethereum based rewards and rare cards.

Will Sorare Change Fantasy Football Forever?

The traditional fantasy football tournament is solid and for traditionalists, the game will exist in the format it does now. This is the foundation of the hobby and will remain in place as long as football does.

Sorare is attempting to add interest to the format and attract not only sports fans but crypto investors. As such, Sorare has come up with a system that provides not only fun sports play but a form of investment too.

It will be interesting to see how the value of its NFTs increases over time.

Photo by Unsplash

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