Today’s post is going to be the only open post for the next two weeks so enjoy. I greatly appreciate your support and I hope you’ll consider subscribing for a month to see the full Daily experience. Today I’m discussing Sorare’s recent hires, planning for two weeks of German Bundesliga coverage as we ready for the release of 2021-22 cards at the end of October, and highlight some Key Auctions (skip to the bottom).
I’m dying to talk about Erling Haaland and his SO5 scores. Did you know in the last year he has more scores of 80+ points (15) than under 50 points (13)? Let’s comp that with Kylian Mbappe, another very young player with massive upside and a long career still ahead of him. Mbappe has 14 80+ scores in the last year, and has 21 scores under 50 points. Haaland has that great July 21, 2000 birthday, giving the 21 year old this season, PLUS THREE MORE at U23. Mbappe turns 23 December 20 which means he’s only got two U23 Sorare season’s left. (All data visualizations via SorareData).
So here’s Haaland’s scoring.
And Mbappe.
Which leaves us wondering what the actual prices for Haaland will look like, but I have a hard time believing they’ll be less expensive then the top of the market prices we’ve seen from Mbappe, Lionel Messi, Neymar, or even other great players who don’t play for PSG. The front trio for the French runners-up are the best comp though because their scoring, position and international profile (ie “collectability”) are basically in line.
I’m not ruling out that someone might spike a massive 20 ETH kind of bid on his 1/100 Rare, but it seems massively unlikely that the rest of the run will be much higher than Mbappe’s recent pricing which is around 6-7 ETH at the moment. That’s still north of $20,000 for a Rare, and the supply for Mbappe cards is a lot larger than Haaland’s will be this year. It isn’t only the lesser scarcities that will be commanding high prices, Mbappe’s Limited have stuck close to $2,000.00 USD, with a last three-day price 0.552 Ξ / $1,988 (thanks SorareData!).
It will also be interesting to the prices players like Robert Lewandowski who do not currently have Limited cards once those are released. Dropping 18 teams worth of Limiteds into the existing pool is going to create some buying opportunities!
Scouting German Bundesliga
So we’ll be covering the full scope of Sorare value for the full slate of German Bundesliga teams. As a reminder, the platform have said there is not currently any plan to offer Bundesliga 2 cards, or score it. Find it here:
Although a magnificent league with legendary clubs, we have no immediate plans to cover or release Bundesliga 2 cards.
And that is a bummer because it limits the scoring potential for some players there is good, but we’ve also lost the safety net of B2 scoring when contemplating buying players from Augsburg, Arminia, Bochum and Furth.
There will be full club Scouting Reports for Bayern Munich, BVB, RB Leipzig, and Wolfsburg as well as partial club reports on teams like Bayer Leverkusen, scouting the U23s, discussing regular GK starters and Next Man Up, and discussing the current league leaders. Plus injuries, Limited and D5, Global AllStar D4 ETH grinders on a budget and all the other insight you expect.
Sorare’s Hiring Spree and Gambling
The next stage of growth for Sorare has arrived with a spate of top level hires being announced late last week.
The group has hired Ryan Spoon, former BetMGM COO, into the same role at Sorare. It also hired Michael Meltzer, previously a senior director of strategic ventures at DraftKings, to be vice president of business development.
Spoon and Meltzer aren’t the only new Sorare executives. The company recently brought on Sylvain Utard as its head of engineering and Kiana Davari as its head of people. The company also hired David Byttow, a tech veteran who’s worked at Lyft, Snap and Postmates, to be its principal architect and head of mobile. He will be tasked with building Sorare’s first global app.
I’ve recently been discussing the possibility that Sorare could be classed as gambling by various countries/regulating bodies (or otherwise be regulated). We are going to find out what the UK Gambling Commission thinks, after they published this Consumer Information Notice:
Consumer information notice: Sorare.com
08 October 2021
It has come to our attention the football-themed website, Sorare.com, is available to consumers in Great Britain.
Sorare.com is not licensed by the Gambling Commission.
This means that any activity completed on the site by consumers in Great Britain is outside of the gambling regulations that a licensed operator should comply with.
Consumers are being advised to consider this information when deciding whether or not to interact with the site.
The Gambling Commission is currently carrying out enquiries into the company to establish whether Sorare.com requires an operating licence or whether the services it provides do not constitute gambling.
We will not be commenting further pending the conclusion of those enquiries.
A find they are subject to regulation would not be unexpected, in my eyes, even if not from the UK from one of the many other countries around the world which will be conducting similar reviews.
The platform certainly has legal counsel spanning the globe, but the hires of both Spoon and Meltzer are undoubtedly intentional to leave them well positioned to continue growth even if they are classed as gambling (notably in the US).
Fair Warning - Key Auctions Ending Today
A trio of Rare cards that can be had on the lower-end of the spectrum makes for
João Mário - Mid, age 28 - Rare 23/100 2021-22 (11:30 CET 5:30am EST)
João Mário is on his fourth club in as many seasons, having not played two years for the same team since 2017-19 with Inter Milan. Short stints in England and Russia, as well as a return to former club Sporting last season (where he made 24 starts with two goals and as assist) have seen the Portugesse midfielder struggle for a home, as he searches for a regular place in a starting XI. At age 22 he posted his career-best season for goals (6) and assists (10). In the 5+ seasons since that he’s collected just 10 goals and 14 assists. He’s a modestly-priced, ETH grinder play with minimal upside and a penchant for DNPs. Tread carefully. Oh, and please don’t confuse him with Porto’s João Mário, who is a whole different cat and will run you into a very different price bracket.
His current L5:60 includes the 72 he posted against Vitória de Guimarães when he picked up his first (and only) goal of the season. To read more about Benfica, grab a subscription and read the full Scouting Report.
João Victor - Def (age 23) - Rare 7/100 2021-22 (12:00 CET 6:00am EST)
I scouted Victor and the full Corinthians team recently, writing:
Y’all there are a lot of João Victors in the world. This isn’t the one who committed to swim for Georgia State. The 23 year old center back has been very good for Atl Goianiense (25 starts last term) and Corinthians this year (23 starts and counting). He is an exceptional GAS D4 player who has a great point floor without any sustained display of top-end scoring.
The downside is the lack of offensive output at this early stage in his career, coupled with the abject lack of clean sheets from his current squad. Only seven clean sheets means AAS that do not benefit from the +10, a significant boost. If you added 10 points to even seven more of his scores across the last year it’s not hard to see how quality his overall scoring is. His Unique recently sold for $15,018.20 4.114 ETH
Johannes Handl - Def (age 23) - Rare 31/100 2021-22 (13:00 CET 7:00am EST)
The Austria youth international has made seven starts for Austria Wein this season, the 9th placed club in Austria’s top flight. There have been 10 matches this year, so that’s /checks math/ three DNPs but why I like him is that he’s scoring big on All Around Scores even when he isn’t keeping a clean sheet. See his 25.2 against Wolfsberger which netted a 60pt day despite losing 1-0. Three scores of 60+ with a DNP in his last four chances might make this the last chance you can buy Handl for the low, low price around the 0.069 Ξ $238 which is his current low offer (three-day average is also around there).
He did make 22 appearances last season, but only 16 were starts. This is a nice progression; his one goal in the seven matches doesn’t hurt his value any and he did pocket three goals last season.
Congratulations, Andrew!
The former RotoWireAndrew is the new Head of Content for SorareData and you should all be very happy about that news.
Andrew is well known in the Sorare community already as the co-host of Sorare Andrews (w. Black) but it’s his decade of experience with RotoWire that make this a good match. He understands how to build and maintain an excellent suite of tools for fantasy managers and any/all of those tools that remain free and available will be worth utilizing. This is a great hire which I’d still be saying if I didn’t know Andrew.