Sorare partners with NBA for a free-to-play fantasy basketball game

Web3 game developer Sorare has partnered with the National Basketball Association (NBA) and National Basketball Players Association (NBPA) to launch a free-to-play fantasy basketball game this fall. The game will feature NBA’s 2022-2023 season.

According to a press release by NDA, the new fantasy basketball game will include digital collectables.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver in a statement said:

“Our partnership with Sorare will give NBA fans an entirely new way to engage with our teams and players. With Sorare’s emerging NFT fantasy platform, we see significant opportunities to broaden our community of fans and grow NBA basketball around the world.”

What is Sorare?

Sorare is an Ethereum-based Web3 game developer. Currently, it offers digital collectables for a fantasy soccer game and the addition of a fantasy basketball is a big step for the NFT platform.

NBA is not new to the non-fungible token (NFT) world in March 2021 the NBPA and NBA partnered with Dapper Labs’s NBA Top Shot to launch handpicked highlights from the 2020-2021 basketball season. Following its launch, the NBA Top Shot collection accounted for the majority of weekly NFT transactions for months although its popularity has since declined.

Last year, Sorare was able to raise $680 million to reach $4.3 billion in valuation.

In January, Sorare signed a deal with Serena Williams to assist the firm to expand into new sports categories.