3 min read

Issue 54: Sorare goes MLB, FA's own mint, data

Issue 54: Sorare goes MLB, FA's own mint, data

Here's your weekly review on what happened at the intersection of NFTs and Sports:

  • ⚾ Sorare partners with MLB and MLBPA for player cards and fantasy game
  • ⚽ English Football Association exploring own collection
  • 📊 DraftKings amongst investors in Evaluate Market

Let's have a closer look! 👀

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⚾ Sorare partners with MLB and MLBPA for player cards and fantasy game

"Major League Baseball, MLB Players, Inc. and Sorare on Thursday announced a partnership to launch the first Major League Baseball NFT-based free-to-play game, which will be released this summer. As the Official NFT Baseball Game Partner of MLB, this partnership with Sorare gives fans a platform to celebrate, share and own their MLB passion through gaming. For Sorare, the inventors of the NFT gaming category, this partnership expands its unique concept beyond soccer for the first time, to America’s national pastime." Signups to get notified for the launch are already open.

Source: Sorare, MLB, MLBPA

⚽ English Football Association exploring own collection

"The Football Association is “exploring” minting its own non-fungible token (NFT) collection. The digital collectibles, which are authenticated using blockchain technology, could provide a “big new revenue stream” for the organisation, according to the FA’s CEO, Mark Bullingham. NFTs have become increasingly popular in football in recent months, with The Athletic revealing in March that the Premier League had decided on a company called ConsenSys for one of its official partners. Speaking at the latest UEFA Congress in Vienna, Bullingham said: “NFTs is definitely something we are definitely exploring. It is a big new revenue stream that everyone is exploring. “I think it has to be done in the right way and obviously there is obviously a broader range of commercial options there. What we will do, we will do in the right way and at the right time.”"

📊 DraftKings amongst investors in Evaluate Market

"Evaluate.Market, the leading NFT portfolio management platform, announced its $4M seed round investment led by Rho Capital’s Ignition Fund with participation from Drive by DraftKings, Castle Island Ventures, Arca, Notation Capital, Flamingo Capital Syndicate, Dapper Labs, Visary Capital, Niche Capital, and Dan Nova. “The ability to evaluate the value of NFT projects is more important now than ever,” said Drive by DraftKings CEO and Managing Partner Meredith McPherron. “The Evaluate.Market team clearly understands the importance of creating tools that allow collectors to discover, purchase and track NFTs across an array of wallets and blockchains.”"

🤓 Wrapping it up

So what have we learned in this week's issue?

  • Sorare indeed steps onto U.S. territory. The move was long in the making, but we rather expected a deal with the NFL or NBA, as the MLB already has agreements with Topps and Candy Digital (both Fanatics owned entities) in place. But it seems like Sorare can score with their combination of player cards and fantasy sports. Let's see if they'll be able to pull off more of these deals in the highly competitive North American market.
  • Data is king in the NFT world as well. So it does not come as a surprise that a data-driven business like DraftKings invests in a company like Evaluate.Market. Tools in the NFT world are getting more and more sophisticated and use analytics that we know from the stock markets. This helps to understand user behaviour and to identify market trends, helpful for collectors, investors and businesses alike.

And that's it for this weeks issue! And as always: Feel free to reach out for feedback and to discuss all things NFT and sports! To stay up to date: Make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for stats, drop announcements.