Sorare Ethereum Soccer NFTs Surge After Signing PSG’s Kylian Mbappé

Sorare, an Ethereum NFT-based fantasy soccer game, signed its first player ambassador this week—and secondary sales of the game’s NFT player cards have been surging ever since.

On Wednesday, Sorare announced the signing of soccer star Kylian Mbappé, forward for Paris Saint-Germain F.C. and the World Cup-winning French national team, as an investor and global ambassador. Sorare has also pledged support to Mbappé’s charity, Inspired by KM, as part of the alliance. It is Mbappé’s first move into the Web3 space.

Data from CryptoSlam shows that Sorare NFTs have seen a significant uptick in trading on the secondary market. Over the past 24 hours, Sorare has registered over $6.6 million worth of NFT sales—a 795% increase over the previous 24-hour span.

That’s more than double the amount of trading volume of any other project that CryptoSlam tracks, topping runner-up CryptoPunks with nearly $3.2 million. Sorare is nearly tops for the past week with $10.1 million, behind just the Bored Ape Yacht Club with nearly $12 million.

An NFT is a blockchain token that can prove ownership for an item, such as a digital trading card, artwork, and collectibles. The overall market swelled to $25 billion in trading volume in 2021, and sports collectibles (such as NBA Top Shot) were among the hottest draws as NFTs started reaching mainstream consumers.

Sorare is a fantasy sports game that uses NFTs to represent player cards. Users acquire the cards of real-life players from more than 250 international teams and then can use them to build weekly lineups, earning points from the real-world performances of their respective players. Sorare has numerous active leagues, and rewards are provided to winners in the form of NFTs and ETH.

The startup claims more than 2 million users, with CryptoSlam logging more than $350 million to date in secondary market NFT trading volume. Sorare raised $680 million in Series B funding last September at a $4.3 billion valuation, and counts athletes such as American tennis legend Serena Williams and Spanish soccer star Gerard Piqué as investors.

In May, Sorare announced a partnership with Major League Baseball and the MLB Players Association to launch a fantasy baseball NFT game this summer. The game will focus exclusively on the league and its 30 clubs, and is part of a wider push by Sorare to establish a wider presence in the United States.