The U.S. Major Soccer League (MLS) has announced a partnership with a leading sports non-fungible token company to expand the brand into this emerging sector.
What Happened: MLS announced a partnership with Sorare that will see the launch of new NFTs and a “next generation fantasy game.”
NFTS will be launched for all MLS players. Sorare will be the home of the official fantasy game of the league.
“MLS’ fan base — which includes North America’s youngest and most tech-savvy collectors — and fantasy players alike will be able to freely trade and play with MLS NFTs for the first time,” the company said.
The collection is scheduled to launch in spring 2022.
The deal marks the first U.S. NFT launch for Sorare and follows the company opening an office in the country in late 2021 to expand its presence.
Sorare was founded in 2018 and counts Benchmark, Accel Partners and Softbank as investors. Soccer players Gerard Pique, Antoine Greizmann and Rio Ferdinand are also investors in Sorare.
Related Link: Sorare Review
Why It’s Important: Major League Soccer is the fastest growing sports league in North America, according to the release.
The launch of NFTs and the new fantasy game could help bring additional international fans to MLS, who will tune in to see the best players and keep track of the performances of the players whose NFTs they own.
“At Major League Soccer, our Emerging Ventures team is always looking two steps ahead to offer our fans enriching experiences and to expand our global reach, including LATAM and Asia,” MLS Senior Vice President of Emerging Ventures Chris Schlosser said.
Sorare has grown over the years and is well-known as a leading sports NFT platform and provides a fantasy element to keep utility going and users engaged. The company had more than 350,000 monthly active users as of February 2022. It uses the Ethereum (CRYPTO: ETH) blockchain.
Several rare Sorare NFTs have attracted record soccer NFT prices. A Cristiano Ronaldo Sorare NFT sold for $400,312 in November 2021. The record was broken in February 2022 when a Sorare of Erling Haaland sold for more than $600,000.
Sorare ranks 15th in all-time sales volume among NFT projects on CryptoSlam with a volume of more than $272 million. The NFT collection has appeared in the top 10 weekly sales volume chart several times over the last 60 days.
Photo: Courtesy Sorare
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