SNEAK PEEK
- Lionel Messi, a soccer player, is now a shareholder and a spokesperson for Sorare, a nonfungible token trading game in France.
- Nicolas Julia, the CEO, and co-founder of Sorare described the partnership with Messi as a “huge milestone” for the company.
- Users can trade digital player cards and manage five-man teams in fantasy soccer games with Sorare.
Soccer player Lionel Messi is now an investor and a brand advocate for Sorare, a nonfungible token trading game in France.
The Argentine, a striker for the French team Paris Saint-Germain, will aid Sorare in creating new benchmarks for fan interaction with teams and athletes, the business said in a statement on Wednesday. Sorare noted that they will collaborate to develop fresh content and fan experiences.
Introducing a 🐐 to our team.
We’re proud to announce Lionel Messi as @Sorare’s newest Athlete Ambassador! 🤩🙌#OwnYourGame pic.twitter.com/awpGZEhfZ5
— Sorare (@Sorare) November 9, 2022
The company stated that Messi has taken an equity position in Sorare as part of the agreement without going into further detail regarding the size of his ownership or other parameters. The collaboration with Messi, according to Nicolas Julia, the CEO, and co-founder of Sorare was a “major milestone” for the business.
He wrote in an email to CNBC that they hope to soon share the new material and fan experiences they’ve been working on with Messi because they think he will help them establish new standards in how they approach this.
Sorare enables users to manage five-man teams in fantasy soccer competitions and swap digital player cards. The cards themselves are nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, which are digital collectibles with a blockchain-based ownership history. According to Sorare, this makes each card “digitally scarce.”
With more than 2 million members in 185 countries and partnerships with more than 300 sports clubs and leagues, including Spain’s La Liga and Germany’s Bundesliga, the Paris-based startup, with a most recent valuation of $4.3 billion, has more than 2 million users. Recently, it has broadened beyond its primary concentration on soccer to include other sports, such as baseball and basketball.
With the introduction of “Messiverse” earlier this year, Lionel Messi joined the NFT movement. Together, the project and Ethernity, a blockchain platform that provides access to officially authorized NFTs, launched it. BossLogic, an Australian-based digital artist best known for his work with Marvel and Disney, will be featured in Messiverse with a selection of cryptographic artworks. BossLogic described the collection as a combination of items showcasing accomplishments, moments, team love, and future milestones in a Medium post by Ethernity.
