Sorare is certainly not the first “football manager”. However, it is one of the first and now certainly the most modern one based on “real results”. Fantasy football is nothing new and has been a trend in the USA for several years. American football is easier to evaluate player performance because more performance data is available. In “real” football you have to be a bit more creative and Sorare has clearly done the best job here to be able to judge players’ performances well. Basically, this was already the most important success factor, which is why Sorare actually became the best fantasy football manager.
But that’s not all, because Sorare only allows participation with player cards that you actually have to own. These cards are NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens). Put simply, this is a unique assignment in the blockchain. It states that card XY belongs to address ZX. You are the owner of this address with your Sorare account. And if you now have a card of Cristiano Ronaldo, it is assigned to you and cannot be taken away by anyone.
That’s the big advantage of NFTs: they are unique, can be uniquely assigned and tracked, and are also only in your hands. EA Sports could remove a player from FUT at any time and you won’t be able to do anything about it. This is not possible with NFTs.
In short, the player cards at Sorare are NFTs and therefore platform independent and your property. You can also sell them outside Sorare.
Is Sorare free of charge?
Now, of course, these NFTs have a value – and always the value that someone else is willing to pay. This means, for one thing, that you don’t just get these NFTs for free. You usually have to buy them. The more valuable, the more expensive. But in return you benefit from the increase in value of the cards. You use them to play in Sorare, but you can also sell them later. Participation in Sorare is basically free of charge. All you need are the cards. Sorare gives you a team for a common league (casual) at the beginning. These are the “free NFT cards” at Sorare that have little value in that sense. Nevertheless, you can play fantasy football with them and win prizes. But if you want to participate in the higher leagues you need at least so-called limited cards. And these cost at least a few euros – for rather weak players…
So, is Sorare free of charge? In principle, yes. There is no entry fee, you don’t have to bet any money and you can play in the Common League with free cards. However, if you want to play in higher leagues, you have to invest in cards. But these are also yours and can be traded freely.
How does Sorare earn money?
Sorare is its own ecosystem, but it works without its own tokens. So you won’t find any Sorare tokens or anything like that. You can pay at Sorare normally with credit card and in Euro and of course in Ethereum. The gas fees are paid by Sorare (currently) so you don’t have to worry about that.
Sorare does not receive any commission on manager sales. So if you contact a manager and buy a card from him, Sorare does not earn any money from it. There is also no fee to join the leagues.
That doesn’t necessarily sound like a good business model: Sorare covers your payment fees, they don’t get commission on trading cards. But not so fast. After all, Sorare can issue new cards every season. There are currently 183 clubs on Sorare (as of December 2021). Each club, of course, has its 15-20 players in the squad, depending. And there are 1000 Limited, 100 Rare, 10 Super Rare and 1 Unique card from each player. So a total of 1111 cards/player/season. So that’s a total of over 3 million cards – and that’s already at an early stage of Sorare.
These cards will be auctioned off at the beginning. That is, Sorare partly “drops” these cards – and partly awards them as prize money. In the latter, of course, Sorare makes no money and gives the cards away. But when they are auctioned, the proceeds go directly into Sorare’s pockets. And that’s more than enough that you don’t have to worry about how Sorare pays its staff and all the prize money.
The more managers bid their way up in auctions, the more money is collected and the higher prize money is available. Of course, this also goes in the other direction. But you don’t have to worry that Sorare is a ponzi scheme. Sorare is not dependent on more and more managers taking part and the prices of the cards going up and up.
How do I start at Sorare?
First of all, you have to register here. This is done in a minute. Then you will receive Common cards as a welcome gift, which you can use to put together a team. All you have to do is click on “Play” and select the “Common League” or “Casual”:
Click on “Edit” or “Register” to set up the team:
The principle is more than simple:
There is a goalkeeper, a defender, a midfielder, a striker and one on the bench. You can also choose a captain who gets a bonus. These bonuses are always percentage bonuses. A 5% bonus for a player with 100 points will bring you more points than for a player with 50 points.
At the end of the match day, the score is calculated and it is determined how many points your team has earned. Real performances on the match days are taken into account. This also means one thing: if a player does not participate for whatever reason, he will not receive any points. This is called DNP for Did not Play. If he plays, however, the performance is determined, which varies depending on the position. This involves things like assists, goals, saves, duels won, etc.
How do the rankings work?
It’s simple: The more points you score on a match day, the higher up the rankings you go. And your reward depends on your position. For example, the first 100 teams get a high-value card as a gift, the next 100 a lower-value card, and the next only a lower-value card. Ethereum or Euro prize money is then given for rank 1-3. This is only an example, as every league is different and the prize money and structures are constantly changing.
There are also so-called threshold leagues where you get fixed cash prizes of e.g. 40€ if your team scores over 205 points. At 250 points you get even more. This means that you get paid regardless of your position in the league. These Threshold Leagues are still in existence, but nobody knows how long this will last.
How do I get cards at Sorare?
The quickest way is through auctions. Virtually every few seconds an auction ends and it is very unlikely that you won’t find the card you want. The best thing to do is to filter Soraredata according to your exact criteria and click through the auctions. There you will be linked back to Sorare to place a bid.
Attention: if you bid by credit card with Euro, the amount you bid will already be debited and if you are unsuccessful it will be reversed. This can be very annoying if you place many bids and win rarely. It is easier to make a one-time deposit and bid with this budget.
In addition to auctions, there are also manager sales. The problem here is that 80% of managers set astronomical prices in the hope that a stupid buyer will eventually be found. That means you have to filter much better here. This is also possible via Soraredata. Don’t make the mistake of looking directly at Sorare and hoping for bargains – that is very frustrating.
You can also make an offer directly to managers for cards – even for only 5€ although he offers the card for a thousand euros… But here you should not take the manager for a fool and make a fair offer. Otherwise you have only invested time and probably a manager who blocks you immediately.