England's top football clubs are considering inking a £30 million a year non-fungible token (NFT) deal with French cryptocurrency startup Sorare.
According to a Sky News report, the Premier League held talks with 20 clubs that compete in the year-long league and have discussed the possibility of a multi-year deal with the crypto startup that can be confirmed in the coming weeks.
Though officially unconfirmed, the NFT deal is said to be around static images of football players playing in the top English league. It could include top players like Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane, Manchester City's Erling Haaland, and Antony of Manchester United. These individual players and clubs have hundreds of millions of followers.
The NFT Hype is Still Real
Blockchain -based NFTs, which enable fans to have the original piece of art or any other media, have become very popular in sports. Several clubs and players have launched their own lineups of NFTs for enhanced fan engagement.
NFTs Targeting Sports Fans
Founded in late 2018, Sorare developed a fantasy football platform based on NFTs. It allows players of its fantasy league to buy and sell cards from other players and sold more than $100 million worth of its limited edition trading cards last year.
In its last funding round led by Softbank, the company scored $680 million at a valuation of $4 billion. It is also backed by famous football players like Kylian Mbappe and Rio Ferdinand.
However, Sorare is not the only crypto startup to tap this sports market. Another company, Socios has already inked deals with several top football clubs, helping them to launch tokens and NFTs for fan engagement.
Now, several deep-pocket crypto companies have even become prominent sponsors of football teams. The Tezos brand is labeled on the training kit of Manchester United, while its local rival Manchester City added OKX as a sponsor.
The report outlined that the Premier League's interest in Sorare came after another similar deal with ConsenSys which failed to materialize earlier this year. Meanwhile, a separate deal between Premier League and Dapper Labs is under discussion.
