This year was not about money but about having a community, so it has been a good year.

There are a lot of people saying: "Ah, I could do that if I have these cards" but the reality is that there are so many cards in the market that it is really challenging to choose 5. Sorare Academy is a risk-free game and the idea is to get new users.

Sorare was interested in working with Fantasy Football Scout. If in England Sorare is becoming significant, then Sorare Academy can become big also. The main goal is to have an easy onboarding pass.

YNWA: The PL license is the last one that is missing. If Sorare does not obtain the PL, how do you see Sorare Academy evolving?

I guess that we won't change because users are mostly from France. Of course, we have a UK focus, but if Sorare does not get the rights, the Academy will continue. But just imagine that Sorare obtains the rights, then I dream about Sorare being present alongside the pitches, and the Academy will also be in front of the scene. We have all thought of a PL license announcement as an early Christmas present but in the end, our wish does not become reality.

YNWA: A lot of people are asking me: "What is the thing with the PL?" How will that change the way you approach the game?". Do you think this is holding people back from playing Sorare and the Academy?

Some people want to scout in specific regions while others don't care. I think that having the EPL on board would bring a lot of new users. There is undoubtedly something regarding casual fans for sure.

Hibee: There is also a point related to the OneShot League because the JPL was a "test league" to onboard managers, but there are also managers that want exclusive leagues on Sorare such as Belgium, Italian, and France...

What is interesting about what we have built is that the Sorare database is not designed for the commons. So because we have done a lot of work in the backend of our app, it is quite easy for us to create an EPL League or a Serie A League.

We do have a new division plan, which is a piece of exclusive news we share with you. Today you come in, and you use only free cards, but our plan is to design gameplay where you need 3 limited cards to play.

Hibee: Giving people more utility is a good idea as we know prices can be a barrier. People are coming to a new space and usually, it is free to play. You are not used to spending a lot of funds to access games.

When you routinely trade thousands of dollars by selling and buying NFTs, it does not seem strange but "normal people" think: "You spend thousands for what?!". So we want to help them to start playing the game. Sorare is very social and is the main reason we play it. If more and more people come on board, then it becomes more and more exciting to play.

Hibee: That price point is a real challenge.

If you can just send an email to your colleagues "Hey, I just started a Sorare League, and you can join for free", that would generate an easier signing-in process for sure.

There are things about Sorare that the game needs to nail, and the community can help:

• Prices
• Progression

YNWA: There are always so many variables. There is no game out there that pays off. The supply is challenging, and the rewards are as well. The difficult step is the jump-in. As soon as you are in, it is a circle, and the ball rolls. There is SorareMega that is helping as well for playing with 3, 8, or 11 cards.

The Limited cards helped a lot with the prices. It is so essential for the game economy.

YNWA: How do you see the next coming months?

In 12 months if we can get to a state with the EPL rights that would be awesome. We expect more fantasy football scout articles. We expect more divisions and more people playing, basically. We want to make it as easy as possible for people to join us, even for people who do not understand cryptocurrency.

Hibee: There are a lot of elements for new people to understand this space. You can see that for some people it is too much and they do not want to plunge into crypto knowledge and the other side games are an excellent way to achieve results.

Sorare provides cards for us and is super supportive so it demonstrates the value of doing so. We want to be ready because things are moving fast. You never know what will happen. What we don't want to do is to wait and not act. If nothing happens, it is fine; it is still 3,000 players per week providing feedback, so we are ready for whatever comes.

YNWA: For me, I still maintain that there is a need for a new angle to the game. We have always been told that Sorare is about collecting cards but at the same time, I feel that we are drifting away from this tagline because it is not about collecting it is about owning the right cards at the right time, and it is about bringing new cards into the correct owners. Sorare has lost his identity for me in terms of collectability, it is not a collectible platform even if it is still the main headline. Yes, you can come and collect nice cards from the team that you support, but you are not progressing in the game if you are going down the collecting roots. You are only progressing and maintaining speed in the game regarding the pace it advances if you choose Salah as a captain, get weekly points, and climb divisions. As soon as you start to allow sentimentality to your Sorare collection, I guarantee that you are not gonna obtain the same kind of returns, which is a real shame. For me, there needs to be a fundamental switch from the Tournaments driven strategy to a strategy where you allow people to come in and buy the cards they like even if they are the worst-performing players in SO5 under the current scoring metrics. Still, there needs to be a reward and something given to people that want to buy this kind of card even if they are not going to compete against Bayern Munich or PSG cards.

We think there are plenty of ways to go for this vision, and that will come soon with the Bundesliga moments that should come this year, and that is the sign they want to give a more collectible aspect to the game. There is also the possibility of having digital books. It can be a focus on collecting as well as playing tournaments. Sorare is an interesting place at the moment. By listening to this podcast and watching Discord, we see people looking at different things. It feels that people are more critical regarding the platform than before.

Hibee: Yes, I feel that as well, and this phenomenon is explained because the early adopters were different profiles than the newcomers. In this space, you miss more than you are going to catch. I am gonna look at other NFT football games because they can complement my enjoyment in that space. Sorare has an opportunity to dominate the market. But look, with Mark losing value in the collecting element, there are some pillars missing and a lot of frustration there. When there is frustration, this kind of thing can annoy new managers. You will always have the debate about winning more or fewer rewards.

YNWA: It has been a virtuous circle because the market raised, ETH exploded, and that's being helped by the fact that the lovely user base was insisting on using ETH instead of a fiat equivalent when trading. You know, people have found that Sorare has worked very well for them, and they found tons of great content out there because with whatever budget you wanted to come in, you have seen people turning 100 pounds into 200 pounds, people turning 200 pounds into 500 pounds and on and on and on. So people can obviously think of the things they could have done differently because that good wheel is becoming a money-making exercise. Yes, it gives me excitement, but this excitement can be found somewhere else. I do not need segregation between tournaments and social leagues, for example. In terms of game evolution over the next 12 months, yes, I can imagine all the challenges that are there (scoring metrics, progression bar, tournament structures), but we need real evolutions regarding tournament structures and Goalkeepers, for example. It seems that there is an indecisive movement currently and the community feedbacks are so great. I am pretty sure that there are some genuine ideas that need to be taken more seriously. Sorare, okay, it is bigger now, but the company needs to ship more stuff. At some points, they will need to make decisions about feedback, but the next decisions are critical now as the timing as well. We have not seen any major updates recently. There is no reason not to see a Bundesliga monthly tournament, for example, or a LaLiga with matches-tickets as prices. I have no doubt they will do.

We have a lot of sympathy for the top team, and the money invested is enormous. Sometimes their job is not particularly enviable if you put yourself in Nicolas' shoes for example you see that there is a very established userbase that profited a lot and now has a lot of money on the platform. Everything is based on current game rules, so when he thinks: "Okay, I need to acquire a new 100k user, how do I do that while making the costs less important?" I think he certainly does not want to piss off the existing managers. Today, each breath annoys someone, so I guess that takes a bit of time, and people are impatient. As you said, people forgot what they did for them yesterday, and we saw this on other platforms as well (on Football Index, for example, when people made a lot of money very quickly, they became accustomed to the "what if condition"). The things that they can do is to create other reasons for things to have value, and I think it has always been your longer-term plan. SO5 will be the basic utility of Sorare cards, and if we can get partnerships done and Sorare cards in big games, then maybe you can get to that point where the collectors of the game are not focused on scores but more on holding an NFT. A lot of people are holding NFTs because they think these NFTs will become more valuable one day without necessarily any kind of games around them. If I was Sorare, I won't change the games too much but rather focus on what can be built around.

I wonder if they see the side games providing that. When people are shouting that they are not happy, on other platforms, things are moving quickly, and decisions are made for the community. Maybe Sorare has an idea that nobody has thought about and everybody will be happy with.

They are not a startup anymore; they are in this peculiar space where they are still communicating with people with the same expectations as when they started and when you could communicate directly with the team all the time. They've got investors now and have to do things differently now.

Hibee: Some excellent points. I agree with quite everything you said. I do not envy the team but have confidence in them to do right, and I hope they will become the platform they deserve. Third parties are doing a lot of work for Sorare. I have always had this mindset of "no rush needed," but it does feel that the last couple of months have been slow, and we need some announcements. Even if it is as you said, Mark, the training teams. I have stopped creating training teams because if I need to change so many teams every week, it is a nightmare. I also want a private league where I can invite all the people I follow on Sorare. What is hard is that everyone has different sources of enjoyment on the platform, so the balance of the course is hard to find for Sorare. How I see the platform is a different point of view than the other 90k managers. With all the new clubs and players coming, the game has changed so much.

If you don't use your cards, give them to me! (joke)

If Sorare has official licenses that are a non-neglectable competitive advantage because it is difficult for another platform to buy the EPL rights, there is a high probability that Sorare will take it. I have 0 inside knowledge; that is only my opinion.

The gambling commission also plays a role because we are waiting so much for this license. Of course, it is a non-regulated place, so legislation is moving into the NFT and crypto so, as they probably should because these kinds of activities are acting in a "far west".

YNWA: Does anyone have an opinion about the English market size? We are relatively small compared to the French community, the Spanish, and now the German one.

It is hard to know, from the Academy's point of view, 30% of users come from the UK. A lot are coming from France and from all over the world. So I feel that if Sorare is willing to spend a marketing budget on the UK market, of course, these campaigns will still be niche.

I just made a Google Trends Search of the word "Sorare" worldwide, and we are 19th on the list, below Slovenia. The top 5 are France, Luxembourg, Belgium, Spain, and Italy. Switzerland is 6th, maybe because everyone wants to understand why they are banned there.

Hibee: Some countries are the most advanced in the crypto space, and that can explain the pace of Sorare adoption.

Sorare Academy is 4th after SorareData in the category "Related Queries" :)