Russian Premier League soccer champion Zenit St. Petersburg is the latest high-profile club to enter the blockchain gaming world.
Zenit St. Petersburg — the top soccer club in Russia’s Premier League — has signed on to the Ethereum blockchain-based fantasy soccer game Sorare platform.
As of Oct. 15, Zenit players will be released as collectible and tradeable digital cards as part of the blockchain-based game, joining 100 other international soccer clubs among them Juventus, PSG, Atletico Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain.
Blockchain player cards can be exchanged with other managers and gamers can play games as soon as they have a minimum of 5 digital cards. The score of each player card is tied to their real-life performances in soccer league tables.
Sorare CEO Nicolas Julia says the platform aspires to create a global fantasy soccer blockchain game that includes the top 10 leagues in the world.
Since its launch in March 2019, Sorare has grown 52% month-on-month on average and today counts 40,000 users globally. Interestingly, Russia has grown to become Sorare’s third-largest marker worldwide, witnessing 70% month-on-month user growth. The country also ranks first in terms of average daily time spent on the gaming platform, at 1 hour 15 minutes per day.
Zenit’s general director, Alexander Medvedev, has said he hopes the partnership with Sorare will give the club’s brand better coverage and enable it to reach out to younger fans overseas, especially in Asia and America.
Nonfungible — a rankings site for blockchain games and creators of collectible, non-fungible tokens — currently has Sorare ranked 4th. It reports $181,353 in seven-day volume as compared with $445,545 for the top-ranked game, Superrare.
