This article is a transcript of an interview recorded on November 10, 2023.

Intro

SportsMoe: I have been in sales for a long time. I am a business guy, start-up worker, and entrepreneur. I started working when I was 16. I have played and watched football since I was 6 years old or seven years old. My first souvenir is Zinedine Zidane, who put in a headbutt to Materazzi. I saw via an advertisement from the NBA on Twitter that there was this new NFT online cards game, so I started to watch tons of YouTube videos about it, and I was like, “This is very cool, I got to have my hands on some of these cards early before people do.” So I went to pick up a card from Devin Booker, Paolo Banchero, the number 1 rookie from last year. So, I picked up a few NBA cards. I looked up the football side, and I was like, “I might be too late for this”. And I saw the cards were incredibly expensive.

They launched around January the NBA season, which was very late in the football season. I did not look at the football at first. I saw the Premier League partnership and thought, “If these guys have secured the Premier League, this is gonna go somewhere”. So, as soon as that happened, I started picking up cards. My first purchase was a Raphaël Varane Limited card. I did not know anything about mint at the time. After that, I got Amrabat because I heard he would be transferred to United. So, I decided to pick him up before he got his United cards. At the time I entered the game, it was not the best time of entry because, at that time, there was tons of hype around. Every player was overvalued. So, I started building my gallery at the worst time.

I am having so much fun and figuring it out more and more. I am ranking higher and higher. I recently had a Super Rare 3rd finish in Cap 240. I love caps because if you read the game and understand the averages, you can do really well with the way you pick your players. I am using SorareData a lot to sit down and analyze players and their performances and how they are looking. It has been fun. I have been enjoying watching the Jupiler Pro League. I have not watched the Pro League for ten years, and I am starting to look at the big teams in the Pro League. I am learning about the next player, the next big thing, the Eredivisie also, I started collecting some of the PSV cards. It’s fun. I am having fun picking up the younger players and jumping on the journey. I found that a lot of the people who are joining Sorare nowadays are just joining, buying a few cards, and that serves them the next week end to buy another set of cards. They are not really capturing the essence of having a trading card and utilizing it long-term. They just want to buy the next big hype. A good example is Ferguson, who had his great form at Brighton. I don’t know if you recall that.

Boris: The young Irish guy. Yes. I have seen the price of his cards going crazy. But I don’t follow him closely.

SportsMoe: Yeah. I will tell you. He is great. He has a good score on average. He is 18, so he is very young. The moment he scored his hat-trick, his price on Sorare went up by 50%. The next week, his price dropped because he was not starting. It told you a lot about the game. People are jumping on it to make more money, there are more bots over the last 7-8 months. It’s not just users sitting down and enjoying the fantasy aspect or collectors. We are seeing a lot of people just going for profits. And I don’t know if it’s a good long-term approach. In my opinion, they are not enjoying the game.

Boris: What do you mean exactly by “enjoying the game”? What is your approach, and what do you think are the apparent mistakes? What is the best way to get excitement on Sorare?

SportsMoe: Everybody has their favorite team or two. Everyone is watching different leagues and stuff. We also like small teams, I used Brighton as an example earlier because they play very good football. You have also Girona right now in La Liga doing very well. We are seeing the rise of Dortmund again in the Bundesliga. There are a lot of teams when we put them on TV, we know who is on TV, no matter how crazy fanatic you are. I would recommend following your teams, picking the young players that have potential and are going to give you utility over the next 5, 6, 7, or 8 years, and enjoy the ride. Enjoy their journey over their career. If you hear about a transfer rumor, enjoy that excitement. I feel like people are treating it the same way as Pokemon because they never thought these cards were going to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. We hear about the Pokemon Charizard, going for crazy amount of money. And I can guarantee that the kid who traded that card, at the time, did not think that it was something that could be worth millions. But during this journey, he grew up, spent time, and shared memories playing this Pokemon game, he enjoyed it. Many people are just looking at their short-term gain, especially in the world of NFTs and the world of crypto that we are seeing right now. This is something we are looking at for the next 10-20 years. So if you want profit, play long term. If I look at my portfolio, I think it is down at something like 30% percent. I collect a lot of fresh mint, 1/100, 1/1000, and Rookie cards because I want to build a collection. I want something for 20-30 years from now, sitting down with my kids and telling them, “he is one of the Rookie cards that I ended up scouting back in the days, and now, boom, I knew this guy was fresh, look at what happened!”. And if I can make good money it would be great, but I enjoyed my journey. How were you able to trade that Pokemon card if it was not with your friends' group? We have a whole community around the world that enables us to play crazy tournaments.

When I first started players, one of the biggest purchases after I finished my United collection was to collect Arnaud Bodart, the famous goalkeeper in the Pro League. I watched many YouTube videos of that guy and was like, “This guy is a very good goalie. He has excellent potential. I don’t see him staying in the Pro League for too long. I see him going for bigger sides.” He has been called up in the Belgium side. I can see something going around with him. And people are asking me why I spent so much USD on cards, and the answer is: “I am just having fun.” I am beyond mentally stimulated. When I watch the game, the fact that I own a card, it’s 10 times more fun. So I would recommend playing the game that you enjoy. Have fun with it, don’t put your life savings on it, don’t go hoping you are going to be the next millionaire, and if you are, great. People who bought Bitcoin in the early days did not believe they were going to become the billionaires they are today. It is the same concept. They had a passion. They believed in what was going to happen.

Regarding the NFTs and what Sorare is doing, I think there is tons of potential unlocked. I give them a lot of respect for the corporation. I am not happy with how the cards are being minted compared to the past. We will see what they got for the strategies and stuff. I just see so much potential for the game itself. I am having fun. I am excited. Hopefully, in the Bundesliga Special this upcoming week, I can get some tickets and have a reason to fly to Germany to watch a game. That’s cool. That’s just coo!. I want free seats to watch a game from playing a game of trading cards. That’s what makes the game great. That’s my personal perspective on the game.

Boris: When you arrive, do you first buy NBA cards? What is your approach to the game?

Budget management

SportsMoe: I did not plan much. Paolo Banchero and Devin Booker were some of the first cards I got. I ended up playing with him on FIFA during a stream. I am a big fan of the guy. I think he is a great player. I watch a lot of NBA. I am very good at Fantasy NBA, I am a Diamond player in Yahoo Fantasy.

I saw an opportunity for these launch edition cards. I can get utility for 10 years and own one of the first launch editions I thought it was so cool. It is one of the first cards even issued in this NFT game of Devin Booker. My approach was just to buy the cards and have fun with it. I just wanted to have more cards and win more prizes. My main sport has always been football. I got a few rewards. I finished in maybe the top 10 in the NBA a couple of times. I did not get a podium. It required a lot more money actually to reach the podium in Sorare: NBA. You need your Jokic, Giannis, your Luka Doncic, those players bringing you 80 or 90 points, and then your secondaries are Devin Booker. I was just trying to win a few rewards. It is a very fun hobby. Expensive, a little bit. But it is a fun hobby.

In the NBA, players play until 35 or 36. LeBron James, at 38, is still performing well. I think about it this way: every ten years, the increase in medical advances gives players crazy advantages. Think about football, 20 years ago, players were playing until 31 or 32. We have Cristiano Ronaldo scoring 48 goals this year. I don’t care which league you play in, and I respect that. LeBron James is 38 and still scoring. A lot of players at 28 or 29, depending on the club and the dedication, can still get you 5 years of utility. Like Casemiro or Raphaël Varane. I follow United closely. If they go the Saudi, Sorare does not have the license, so at some point, Sorare needs to get this license because the people who have spent big money want to see these players scoring. There are tons of stars playing there: Ryad Marez, Saint-Maximin and the list goes on.

Boris: How do you select your first cards? Do you go for the trading strategy? Or do you mainly focus on the competitions to win rewards?

SportsMoe: If I buy a player, I go long-term. I don’t like to buy and sell too much because then I am stuck looking at what the players are worth, how much I am getting, and how much I am losing. It is too much of a headache, I think. Especially with the way the game is growing right now, we see many players losing value. So, I don’t think it’s the best approach for me.

My strategy, honestly, was just to pick up players who have future potential. I don’t look at current performance. I picked up Bruno Fernandes as my performer, Haaland, and Alexander Arnold. I was looking for U23 and All-Star players. As I became more familiar with the game, I started to look at Cap divisions.

I love Kana, 19 years old. I think I won on a trade involving Kana. The guy looks like a monster.

Boris: Yes, I think he will be a great card to have in the future. I sold one of his first cards and have done a lot of buying and selling cards for this player. He generated me good money. Speaking about football, I think it is a good player.

SportsMoe: I like that he is not only young but also good for the Cap240 format.

Boris: He will not stay in his current club. He has been selected for the Belgium U21 team and has excellent potential. I think it is a good choice. He is one of the top 100 players in Belgium. The only downside is that he is not playing regularly.

Strategies

SportsMoe: In my opinion, placing high is to be in the top 2 or 3 percent of the game. If you always place 10 percent or higher, you are doing something wrong.

When I found SorareData, this tool helped me to understand my mistakes.

At some point, I also started to look more after injuries.

Vision and wishes for Sorare for the next two years

I want them to care about us, the managers. Despite the recent hype, many of the managers love the community, love how active it was, and love how everybody is so responsive. You have direct access to the CEO on Twitter. I like that sense of community.

Now we are going to see more managers. I don’t want them, for lack of better words, to hore the game out, just keep printing tons of cards and filling their pockets. In economics, they don’t have to print that many cards. If we sit down and look at the economics, if the cards are worth a lot, they don’t need to print that many cards. They just wanted them to be more affordable for a lot of people, that’s what happened with the Limited market. That’s why it was minted at this rate, so the barrier of entry is not so high. I hope they are not thinking only about the dollar but also about the game's future and longevity.

To continuously organize the game in different ways. I love to watch La Liga games and the Premier League to see Sorare on the side of the pitch. In a way, we are all founders of this company. This is a new platform, in a new field, in a new industry almost.

There are a lot of people who put the ideas together. We believe in the idea, so we want to improve the game. As long as they care about users, it will be good. Tons of respect. If you look, recently, every week there was a Special tournament. So much is happening right now, and it is nice to see the creativity in tournaments. I love that. That’s huge, and I think big prizes like the one in the Premier League will be super appealing for many users. Keep it fun; keep doing what they are doing. Keep doing the things that get them to where it is today. If you put money and you forget about the people who helped you to get you there, we have seen that with a lot of companies, they usually tend to go out of business. And I don’t want that for Sorare. I enjoy it. I am kind of addicted to it right now. So don’t take away my drug (laughter).

Hall of Fame

• Goalie: Anatoli Trobin
• Defender: Jordan Teze
• Midfielder: Bukayo Saka
• Forward: Johan Bakayoko
• Forward: Cristiano Ronaldo

SportsMoe: Ronaldo is my favourite player of all time, the rest have been consistent and getting me rewards for my under 23 category. Also exciting talents.