• Sorare announced a partnership with the NBA on Wednesday.

  • The French game, which mixes NFT card collection and fantasy, continues to grow across the Atlantic, after having already signed a partnership with MLB (baseball).

  • Serena Williams participated in the discussions to establish this partnership.

The players keep repeating it, “everything goes very fast in football”.

So when football mixes with emerging technologies, you might as well say that we are on an intergalactic highway, where speed limit signs are quickly forgotten.

Launched in 2019 by two French people (cocorico), Sorare relies on NFT technology to create an online game for exchanging sports badges.

It all started with football.

There is now also baseball, with the MLB (the American League) and, soon, the NBA.

The French start-up announced on Wednesday the launch of a multi-year partnership with the powerful American Basketball League and the NBPA (the NBA players' association).

“We are extremely proud to have entered into this partnership, explains to

20 Minutes

Thibaut Predhomme, right arm of Nicolas Julia, one of the co-founders of Sorare.

The NBA was an obvious choice for us, because the fan base is extremely loyal and committed, because there is already a trading card market and a lot of statistics.

»

One more step in Web 3 for the NBA

For the NBA, it is also a logical follow-up to its "discovery" of Web 3. In April, the American League launched NBAxNFT, which aims to bring together everything related to "basketball with NFTs, games, the metaverse and Web3 ideas,” reports TechTribune.net.

A few days before, the Golden State Warriors had created, for their part, the NFT responsive Playoff 2022. "If they chose Sorare to accompany them in the continuation of this development, it is because we are recognized in this market" , welcomes Thibaut Predhomme.

So how did this French start-up pull off this big deal?

“Already thanks to what we have done in football and baseball”, answers the one who presents himself as the

chief of staff

at Sorare.

And also thanks to the intervention of a certain Serena Williams, recruited as an advisor to the board of directors of the box.

Suffice to say that when the greatest tennis player of all time presents a project, you do not need five minutes to give an answer.

Serena Williams as Matchmaker

"When we have Serena Williams as a board advisor, she's someone we rely on to facilitate discussions with the NBPA and important NBA players, because she brings us credibility, as a athlete herself", acknowledges Thibaut Predhomme.

And that's how the game, at the intersection between blockain-based collection cards and a form of gamification that is done through fantasy, will open up to the NBA.


Serena Williams, a true global icon at the dawn of her second life via @ 20minutesSport https://t.co/CG80Izp0Nc

– 20 Minutes Sport (@20minutesSport) August 29, 2022

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Concretely, for users, there will be no major upheaval in the way of playing with the arrival of the NBA.

All that remains is to set the number of cards to make your team (5 in football, 7 in baseball).

But neither the pace of NBA matches nor the disproportionate weight of statistics in the League should disrupt the gameplay.

The basketball product will reuse the successes of the football product.

But we will adapt to the specificities of each sport.

We adjust to make sure the product we create will resonate with the fans.

This product will be led by the New York office, where we have recruited local sports expert teams, with many collaborators from ESPN, who will work to create the most relevant gameplay for basketball fans. .

»

A new fanbase

With this new partnership, Sorare hopes to recruit new followers.

Today, the start-up claims two million users, thanks in particular to the 280 licenses signed with football clubs (those with Russia were suspended due to the war in Ukraine).



“Each time we add a license, we “unblock” a certain population of fans, who will be interested in the idea of ​​collecting the clubs that join the platform, concludes Thibaut Predhomme.

When you add an entire league, with teams like the Lakers, Knicks or Warriors, you're pretty confident that you're going to unlock new fan bases.

All that remains is to play responsible.


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  • Sport

  • Web 3

  • NFT

  • NBA

  • Basketball

  • Baseball

  • Soccer

  • blockchain