The French company has signed a partnership with Major League Baseball to release a game in the summer based on the product that made it successful.
This is a new turning point in the history of Sorare. The French company extends for the first time its unique concept mixing NFT (non-fungible tokens) and “earn to play” game to a sport other than football. It has signed a partnership with Major League Baseball, to release the first game based on NFTs featuring baseball players in the summer.
Replicating its strategy to other sports is one of the clearly stated priorities to achieve the objective that Sorare has set itself since the beginning of its adventure in 2018: to become a world leader in entertainment around sport. This baseball agreement is a big step towards establishing itself in the North American market. “The American baseball league is one of the oldest and most emblematic in the United States, with highly engaged fans, a very dynamic trading card market and a great data culture.explains Thibault Predhomme, Director of Operations at Sorare. To be able to create NFT cards bearing the image of players, the start-up has signed with both Major League Baseball, the league made up of 30 member clubs in the United States and Canada, and the Major League Baseball Players Association. , which represents all professional players. ” The connection between Americans and baseball is strong. Baseball has always been at the forefront of new technologies and innovations. So we’re proud that MLB and MLBPA have chosen Sorare to bring an NFT game to fans around the world. adds Nicolas Julia, co-founder and managing director at Sorare.
The company also hopes to exploit in Europe and Asia the popularity already acquired by American baseball teams, whose logos are displayed on the caps or t-shirts of thousands of non-American fans. In the same way that the game Sorare has allowed football fans to take an interest in other championships than that of their continent, the start-up hopes that they will be encouraged to take an interest in other sports.
For its part, the baseball league was sensitive to the arguments of the young French shoot to promote its intellectual property, and to the audience it could find there on other continents. “Baseball is a first step, our goal is to have a multi-sport portfolio in the United States» insiste Thibault Predhomme.
In September 2021, Sorare signed the largest fundraising round in Europe, establishing itself both as a Unicorn and a new benchmark in French Tech. Since then, the company has opened an office in New York and recruited several international talents: Ryan Spoon, a former vice-president of the sports channel ESPN, Michael Meltzer, former senior strategic director of the sports betting group Draftkings, Kiana Davari, former Lyft HRD or Dan Sormaz, former design manager at Spotify.
And last January, it brought Serena Williams, the greatest tennis champion in the world, to its board of directors.
The company now claims 1.7 million created accounts and 370,000 monthly active users. In March, it launched its mobile application, available in the App Store, eagerly awaited by its gaming community. The company believes it has enough financial capacity to continue to increase the signing of licenses in football and other sports. From 70 people currently, it plans to increase to 200 by the end of the year, with all the difficulties of managing hypergrowth.
