Collect, Swap, Trade

The Football League in the NFT Universe

Since last year, the German Football League ( DFL Deutsche Fußball Liga), has been cooperating with Sorare and Topps in the NFT sector. With a football fantasy game as well as animated and video-based NFT cards, the DFL presents itself in a contemporary way and offers not only Bundesliga fans in this country a completely new collecting experience.

Collecting football pictures has fascinated not only young football fans for decades. It is not uncommon for adults to stick the small rectangular images of the stars and starlets accurately into their albums. But as football on the pitch evolves, so do the habits and possibilities of collecting. In times of growing markets in the field of non-fungible tokens (NFT), the German Football League has also entered into forward-looking cooperations and thus created something exciting new not only for Bundesliga fans on their own doorstep.

Since autumn 2021, the French company Sorare has acted as the official partner of the Bundesliga and 2nd Bundesliga. The fantasy platform has become the market leader in the area of NFTs in the context of a fantasy football game. At Sorare, NFTs limited in number and featuring images of individual professionals can be purchased. Users take on the role of managers, collect and exchange the digital cards and, depending on the “real” performance of the players, receive corresponding points per game day. A team, with which one can compete against other users on match days, consists of five players: goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, attacker and an additional field player.

The respective player images are available in different versions: For example, a “limited” Erling Haaland is available 1000 times, only 100 times is the attacker of Borussia Dortmund available in the “rare” version. Especially rare are the images with blue (“super rare”, ten times) and black background colour (“unique”, one time) on the card. As is usually the case with NFTs, all digital elements can be collected, exchanged and traded.

“The Bundesliga is one of the best leagues in the world and is home to some of the most exciting players and clubs,” says Nicolas Julia, CEO and co-founder of Sorare. “Germany has always shown a great enthusiasm for football, and in normal times the stadiums record the highest crowds in international comparison. This is football as it should be: Fans engage up close with their favourite players and favourite clubs every weekend.”

Topps-cooperation launched with the “Bundesliga 2020-2021 Season Celebration”

In August 2021, the German Football League entered into a cooperation in the field of NFT with another partner, Topps, and launched its first NFT collection together with the Sticker & Trading Cards partner. The “Bundesliga 2020-2021 Season Celebration” was a look back at the best players and moments of the past season, with animated and video-based NFT cards of all 18 clubs in various ‘rarities’. Cards were sold in blind packs on Topps’ NFT platform, and can still be bought and resold by users on the Secondary Market.

“We want to publish more than just a high-quality product,” says Roshan Patel, content product manager for football at The Topps Company. “We’re creating an NFT ecosystem that excites our fans and brings us closer to the future, but doesn’t forget our passion for football, our community and our mission to advance football globally.”

Throughout the current Bundesliga season, Topps is releasing several collections as part of an overarching series. This began in November with the collection “Topps Series 1 – 21/22 Bundesliga NFT Cards” and continues on 17 March with Series 2. In this collection, in addition to video cards of special moments such as goals or saves, there are also team cards, so-called Club Pennant Cards. It is worth mentioning that, for the first time, fans will be able to help decide which player will be included in the set by means of a fan vote. In addition, the DFL is already working on further plans and campaigns that will be published in the coming months.

Further information at:
sorare.com
toppsnfts.com
dfl.de