Famous soccer player Lionel Messi recently announced that he would become part of French NFT fantasy trading game Sorare as an investor and brand ambassador. Messi plays soccer for a French club known as Paris Saint-Germain, thus changing the specific ways in which NFT trading games such as Sorare interact with clubs and players.
"We are incredibly excited and proud to have Lionel Messi join us as in Sorare," Sorare co-founder and CEO Nicolas Julia said to GamesBeat. "We created Sorare because we are, first and foremost, football fans, so to have one of the game's greatest ever players join us for the next stage of our journey truly is a dream come true."
In the game of Sorare, players can trade digital cards with teams of up to five people through fantasy soccer games. The digital cards are essentially NFTs, or virtual products that can be obtained and recorded through the blockchain. Sorare, which came out to a $4.3 billion valuation, has over two million players who are in over 185 countries. It has also collaborated with over 300 sports teams and leagues, such as La Liga from Spain, and Bundesliga from Germany.
"Fans have always looked for ways to express their passion and get closer to the players and teams that they love and Sorare's combination of a fantasy game with digital collectibles gives fans new ways to do that, wherever they are in the world," remarked Messi.
Because there is such a high degree of lack or scarcity in terms of NFTs, NFT collectors will truly and authentically feel as though they are gaining something invaluable through collecting the NFTs. Because Sorare uses the Ethereum blockchain, it is generally secure, permitting users to utilize its services through a paid API link.
"There has been a lot of hype around different football projects using non-fungible technology up to now, but the ones that stick around will be those that offer real underlying utility and see non-fungible technology as the means to achieving their goals, not the ends," Julia told CNBC.