What is Sorare and how to make money from fantasy football
If you are a football fan, you probably played at some point a football fantasy game. While games such as Football Manager can be really fun when played online or with your friends, there is something even better: playing a football fantasy game where you can actually make money.
With the Football Manager series (or Championship Manager, in case you were around in the late '90s), you could only earn virtual in-game trophies. These were the only rewards you could brag to your friends about, without gaining any real money for your performances.
Let me introduce you to Sorare – a football fantasy blockchain game combining football manager skills and real-time football events into an absolutely unique competition with cash or crypto rewards. I will next explain how the game works and how to make money from fantasy football, playing Sorare.
How Sorare works
The idea behind Sorare is that you can earn either cash or crypto by building a team of five using football player cards and signing up for competitions. The crypto prizes can be either ETH or NFT’s (random player cards). The competitions are based on real-life football games from top football leagues in Europe, America and Asia.
The overall performance of your team will be determined by the performances of each player within the team. They will gain points if they start a game. The better their work on the pitch will be, the more additional points they will get.
If your team gets enough points, at the end of each competition you will be awarded a prize in ETH or a player card (NFT). In case you get a card, you can choose to either sell it for ETH, trade it for other cards or use it to further improve your team.
You can create an account and play the game for free, but you will not have the option to enter competitions. If you want to be competitive and to have a chance to win, you must build a solid team. And for that, you will need an initial investment. For beginners, I would say that $100-150 would be a minimum amount required to be able to buy at least four or five players. Signing up to Sorare with my referral link will get you a free Limited player card after your first five won auctions.
How I got into Sorare
This year, I decided not to buy the latest Football Manager edition. I've played every release since 1999, and for me, in the past few years, FM became repetitive, with less and less innovation. I actually wanted to try something new. It proved to be a very inspired idea. So far, after a few months, since I joined, I've earned four rare cards and some ETH from playing Sorare. Not great, not terrible, but still better than getting nothing from winning a Champions League final in Football Manager.
Deposits and withdrawals
Okay, so let's say you created your account and you're ready to build your team. To be able to bid or buy players, you will first need to fund your Sorare wallet with ETH. There are two ways of doing that. You can buy ETH directly from the Sorare wallet, using a debit or credit card (“Fund with Ramp” button). Or, if you already have some ETH in a Metamask wallet, you can make a deposit by connecting your Metamask wallet to Sorare.
To withdraw your ETH from Sorare you have to connect your Metamask wallet and enter the amount. If you wish to withdraw to another crypto wallet, you can do so by entering your external wallet address and the amount you want to withdraw. You will receive an email asking for confirmation, and once you confirm, the transfer will go through.
Buying and selling cards
Here is how the buying and selling of player cards actually works.
With Sorare, there are two ways of buying a player card. Through auctions (highest bidder wins when the time expires) or from other managers. For the second option, you can buy either by paying the price they set on the card or by negotiating the price, which I would recommend.
Each buying method has its pros and cons. In auctions, you have a better chance of finding good deals and also you have more control over the price. Especially if you first check what the average price of a similar card is, before bidding. However, it requires more patience for the right opportunity to show up. Buying from other managers has its own pros and cons too. It is harder to get a good discount, as people might not be willing to negotiate too much. But you will have a much larger selection of players to choose from when compared to auctions, and you don't need to wait.
Selling a player card is done by setting the desired price you want to receive for it and placing it on the transfer market. Once you have an offer, you can choose to accept it, reject it or block that manager from spamming you with other low ball offers again. Keep in mind that if you sell a player that is already in a competition, that player will be removed from the team and will get a score of zero for that matchday.
One very important thing to remember when starting to play Sorare is that the game has all the card prices set in crypto and cash. These are ETH (default cryptocurrency for Sorare) and Dollars or Euros (depending on your location). This is important because you might want to keep your player sales history consistent in one currency.
For example, let’s say you want to keep your profits in ETH. You might want to look to sell players for higher amounts of ETH than you bought them for, regardless of ETH price fluctuation versus Dollar or Euro. Similarly, if you choose to make profits in Euro, you might want to do so by selling players based on their price in Euro. Trying to keep a record for transfers using both ETH and Dollars/Euro can become confusing in the long run. Personally, I use ETH, because I believe it will reach a higher valuation in the future.
The card system
Sorare player cards are grouped into the following categories:
Common - these have no limited amount and hold no real value
Limited - maximum 1000 player cards
Rare - maximum 100 player cards
Super Rare - maximum 10 player cards
Unique - just one card and also the most valuable
When it comes to the points earned in a competition, the differences between a Common, Limited, Rare, Super Rare and a Unique card for the same player are represented by a bonus system. A card gets a bonus based on its scarcity and on how often it's used. Limited cards get the smallest bonus, Unique cards get the highest. This bonus can influence the number of points a player gets in a match. The bonus level can go from 0% (a Limited card with no playing XP) to 50% (a Unique card with 3 years of accumulated XP). The free Common cards have their bonus reduced to almost half and are not so very useful in a team, except in situations where no other cards are available.
As a beginner, you will be tempted to want to buy the best players in the game, such as Neymar, Mbappe, or Haaland. Long story short, unless you’re a billionaire, you won’t be able to afford them. For example, a unique Mbappe card sold for 116 ETH. Yup, it can be frustrating. But no worries, there are ways to get started and be competitive by scouting less-known players and looking for bargain transfers.
For example, you can use SorareData to check the stats of all the players listed on Sorare. This website allows you to scout players by setting various filters. Try to find players that start in more than 80% of their games, that cost under 0.03 ETH and have an average score per game of at least 40 points. Once you have a list of such players, a few on each position, you can head over to Sorare and try to sign them at a good price.
Having a player in your squad that starts in every game is a huge plus and will bring you points constantly. It is less important if the name of that player is Ronaldo or Billy McGee from FC Texas Hillbillies (there’s no such player or team, I just made them up).
Building your first team
If you’re on a budget (let’s say $100 in total), to make money from rewards your best bet is to take part in auctions and look for bargains. You may want to build your starting squad either using Rare or Limited cards. At least 4 Rare player cards (plus one Common card) are required to sign up in the Global All Stars D4. With the recent introduction of Limited cards, a Global All Stars D5 was launched - here 5 Limited cards per team are required to participate.
Besides the Global All Stars divisions, you can also participate in the following prized competitions: Global Under 23 (only players under 23 years old are allowed), Champion Europe (players from top raking European teams), Challenger Europe (lower-ranked teams), Champion Asia (players from Japan and South Korea), Champion America (USA, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina), Global Unique (unique cards allowed) and Special Weekly (different rules each week).
For scarcity reasons, goalkeepers in Sorare are much more expensive than field players. So unless you can find a goalkeeper that plays regularly for less than $30, you are better with using a Common goalkeeper card. Or at least in your first few games. Finding 4 field players for about $25 each should not be that hard. But try not to spend your money on the first bench-warming players you find. As I said, players that start in games regularly bring in more points than substitutes.
There are 2 competitions per week, and it is up to you to join them, based on your available players. Sorare leagues are usually split into 4 or 5 divisions, based on the cards required for participating teams. Usually, D5 competitions are the easiest to compete in, but due to the higher number of teams, it's also the most contested division. D1 is for managers who can afford at least 3 unique cards, and it offers the highest prizes.
After signing up to Sorare, I would highly recommend going through their help section. Take the time to read all about the points system, rewards, tournaments and all the rules of the game. It will be critical for you to understand how the game works before buying your first card.
How to make money from fantasy football
Once you learn how Sorare works and get relatively good at building and managing your teams, you can make money by using several strategies. One strategy could be building a squad of wonderkids and keeping them for a few years - if they play well and their real market value will rise, so will the price of the cards.
Another possible way of making money is by flipping cards - buying at a discount and reselling right away at a small profit. The catch is that if you overprice a card, or the player gets a severe injury, you risk getting stuck with them for longer than anticipated.
One other possible play is to build a solid team from bargain players with constantly good games. This requires a high level of patience, in-detail scouting and keeping a close eye on the transfer market. Once you have a team competitive enough, you get a better chance of winning ETH or cards.
If you have a higher budget, buying top talent unique cards as collectibles could be a great strategy. Maybe the next person willing to spend over 100 ETH on NFTs will buy one of your players, you never know. Until you find a buyer, you can still earn from participating in higher-tier competitions such as Global Unique.
There are many possibilities of making money from football fantasy with Sorare. It’s up to you to use or develop your own strategy that you think might work best.
Conclusion
Sorare is an addictive game. Compared to other football fantasy games out there, it offers a unique playing experience by rewarding managers with cash or NFTs.
Also, if you like the idea behind Sorare, but you can't really afford to play it right now, check out my previous post on the best ways to earn free crypto.
Hope this information was helpful for you. If you think Sorare is worth a shot, please consider signing up using my referral link - this will get you a free card after your first five auctions. Also, please feel free to leave me a message if you have questions about getting started with Sorare.
