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Sporting Crypto - April 11th 2022: GOALS Raise $15m Seed Round to Build Multiplayer Soccer Game
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Sporting Crypto - April 11th 2022: GOALS Raise $15m Seed Round to Build Multiplayer Soccer Game

Pet Berisha
Apr 11
2
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Sporting Crypto - April 11th 2022: GOALS Raise $15m Seed Round to Build Multiplayer Soccer Game
sportingcrypto.substack.com

We welcome 27 new subscribers to the Sporting Crypto Newsletter who have joined us over the last week!

Join 1204 readers who are interested in exploring where Sports meets Crypto. If you're reading this and still haven't signed up, click the 'Subscribe' button below to join sports industry leaders and fans learning about Web3!

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Intro Notes, Plugs & Amendments 🔌🔧

Hey everyone, welcome back to another edition of the Sporting Crypto Newsletter.

This piece of content has become something I’ve quickly started to mould my week around. Which is frightening but also exciting.

That is one sentence that I’d also use to describe crypto!

🔌 The latest episode of the Floorcast went live last week!

Twitter avatar for @thefloorcastThe Floorcast @thefloorcast
🚨 Ep. 12 of @thefloorcast - The NFT Podcast ❤️ Floor Partnerships w/ @doodlesdeso 🦉 @proof_xyz Ecosystem & Moonbirds 🚀 @haustwts white paper 🐢 U.K Gov and NFTs??? Listen below! 👇
pod.fo/e/117f98
Image

April 5th 2022

13 Retweets24 Likes


🔌 If you're interested in sponsoring the newsletter - feel free to reach out to me on Twitter or LinkedIn, or email me back at this address!


This Week’s Deep Dive: GOALS raise $15m Seed Round to build multiplayer soccer game

Swedish startup GOALS have raised a $15m seed round to help build an alternative to EA’s FIFA video game series.

Their CEO and Co-Founder, Andreas Thorstensson, a former counterstrike pro turned entrepreneur, is well known in Gaming, E-Sports and Crypto.

That blend may well give GOALS the edge in what they’re trying to build.

The raise was led by Northzone and previous investors Cherry Ventures, Moonfire Ventures and Banana Capital. Several high-profile angels also participated, including FC Barcelona star Gerard Pique, Axie Infinity Co-Founder and COO Aleksander Larsen and Sorare Co-Founder Nicolas Julia.  

So what exactly is GOALS?

GOALS is a play-and-earn game that allows users to own in-game assets as NFTs.

It’s being pitched as an Arcade-like football game with less realism than the likes of EA Sports’ FIFA, or Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer (now eFootball).

Unlike Sorare and the likes of FIFA, they’re also choosing not to license real footballers or clubs due to costs, instead, concentrating resources on their team and game development.

So they’re sacrificing realism and licensing, for NFTs?

Not exactly.

Another massive selling point for GOALS is community involvement. GOALS already has an 8000 person strong Discord community consistently giving feedback to their developers.

Unlike the incumbents, who they’re aiming to disrupt, GOALS is looking to move quickly and be community-oriented in the build of the game.

And when you combine community input with ownable in game items, things could get interesting.

GOALS will primarily be free-to-play, but have play-and-earn aspects to the game.

In short, you’ll be able to play for free, but you’ll also be able to buy in-game assets that are NFTs.

It’s no different to Fortnite, Warzone or FIFA - apart from this time the asset is yours and transportable.

“You have a huge incumbent in a monopoly position. They are not innovating in terms of gameplay. They’re focusing on revenues,”

“That’s where a startup has the chance to actually beat them. But we want to do things a little bit differently.”

To Andreas’ point - FIFA continue to increase revenues here.

But many may argue that the users haven’t had a fair say in how the game is developed.

Or, a fair share in the upside of the market that has been created.

Just how big is the market here?

A $15m seed raise seems huge.

It’s almost five times the amount that Footium raised last week, and it’s almost four times the amount Sorare raised in their seed round.

But games are expensive to make. They’re time and capital intensive, so it’s not a huge shock that GOALS have tried to give themselves as much runway as possible.

The large seed round also speaks to the possibilities here. Investors clearly see a world where Sports, gaming and NFTs intersect - and flourish. We’ve seen this with Sorare, Top Shots but also the greenfield likes of Footium and many others to come.

And I guess we don’t really know what this world will become, especially in gaming. N

In EA’s latest earnings report- they claimed that FIFA 21 has now reached over 25 million players and that 29% of their total revenue came from Ultimate Team…clocking in at $1.6bn.

Sorare went from monthly revenues of $50k to $13m in just over 12 months (Jan 2020-Feb 2021).

Epic Games recently revealed that Fortnite made $50m worth of their NFL skins.

3.2m skins were sold.

Fortnite Nfl Gridiron Gang Outfits

The market for sports games and in game assets is monstrous.

There’s really been greater demand.

So Why NFTs?

The main differentiator for GOALS is obviously the NFT aspect of the game.

If people are so ready to throw money at in-game assets, why not ones that they actually own, can transport and do what they want to with?

Gaming is case and point why NFTs will continue to exist, and flourish.

More and more of our time is being spent digitally.

A lot of people play games.

People want to own things online.

I’ll let you do the maths.

I don’t think NFTs will completely replace centralised digital assets like Fornite skins or Ultimate Team cards. There are lots of difficulties in creating the appropriate systems where incentives make sense for game devs to allow for interoperable/transportable items.

But they’ll have a role to play, for sure.

Games that are games first, but have NFTs as prizes, purchasable in-game, ownable assets will be the first to make their mark, in my opinion.

And I think GOALS fits into this category.

Perhaps in the future, interoperable digital items that are truly owned by users exist with incentive mechanisms we can’t quite wrap our heads around at present time.

But right now, the models that emerge where NFTs are part of the attraction, and not THE attraction will be the ones that are most successful and sustainable in this space.

I’m personally intrigued and excited to see what Andreas and the team build with the $15m seed round they’ve just raised.


More sports crypto stories & things to put on your radar

  • WAGMI United have acquired Crawley Town FC. I’ve written about them in the past and why I don’t think this will work out well. It will be interesting to see how their journey goes.

    Twitter avatar for @JoePomplianoJoe Pompliano @JoePompliano
    BREAKING: WAGMI United, a new brand at the intersection of crypto and sports, has acquired Crawley Town FC. Crawley Town currently competes in League Two, but the club's new directors say: "We get promoted to League One in Year Two — or you can fire us.”
    Crypto Sports Brand WAGMI United Has Acquired Crawley Town Football ClubHuddle Up is a daily letter that breaks down the business and money behind sports. Join more than 55,000 professional athletes, business executives, and casual sports fans that receive it directly in their inbox each morning — it’s free. The newsletter is presented by…huddleup.substack.com

    April 7th 2022

    46 Retweets225 Likes
  • ESPN & Autograph, Tom Brady’s NFT company, have kicked off a multi-year partnership by releasing a collection of Brady’s career highlights.

    Twitter avatar for @CoinDeskCoinDesk @CoinDesk
    ESPN and Autograph, Tom Brady’s Web 3 company, kick off a multi-year partnership by releasing an NFT collection featuring Brady’s career highlights. @camlearnscrypto reports
    Tom Brady’s Autograph, ESPN Launch Network’s First NFT CollectionThe collection will feature images of the likely Hall of Fame quarterback and coincide with the release of a docuseries on Brady’s career.trib.al

    April 7th 2022

    30 Retweets81 Likes
  • Messari has dropped a great thread looking at Sorare and Top Shots, as well as some broader comments on Sports NFTs.

    Twitter avatar for @MessariCryptoMessari @MessariCrypto
    1/ Sports NFTs are tradable collectibles held on the blockchain. Because they are on the blockchain, their scarcity is provable. Cards come with different rarity values based on how many are in existence.
    Image

    April 7th 2022

    24 Retweets71 Likes
  • VaynerSports released the VaynerSports NFT pass. More on the following editions!

    Twitter avatar for @ajvAJ Vaynerchuk @ajv
    Excited to announce that minting is now live for the VaynerSports Pass:
    pass.vaynersports.com

    April 5th 2022

    43 Retweets384 Likes
  • Crypto.com is paying Bitcoin bonuses to UFC fighters

    Twitter avatar for @CoinDeskCoinDesk @CoinDesk
    .@ufc fighters will be paid bonuses of between $10,000 and $30,000 in bitcoin as part of its partnership with crypto exchange @cryptocom. By @JamieCrawleyCD
    Crypto.com to Pay Bitcoin Bonuses to UFC FightersBitcoin bonuses will be awarded to the three standout athletes at each UFC pay-per-view event as voted for by fans across the world.trib.al

    April 7th 2022

    210 Retweets883 Likes
  • Blockchain.com have hired Marissa Brooks to lead their Sports & Entertainment partnerships

    Twitter avatar for @jasonkarshJason Karsh @jasonkarsh
    🏀🏈⚾️🏸 Excited to bring @SwissRiss onboard @blockchain to lead the charge for Sports & Entertainment Marketing
    axios.com/blockchaincom-…Blockchain.com jumps into the sports partnership raceThe 10-year-old company hired Marissa Brooks to head its global sports and entertainment partnerships.axios.com

    April 8th 2022

    11 Retweets33 Likes
  • FC Lorient fielded their starting XI with Common Sorare cards

    Twitter avatar for @FCLorientFC LORIENT 🐟 @FCLorient
    📑Voici la composition de nos Merlus 🟠⚫️ ce soir pour affronter l'@ASSEofficiel. 𝐴𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑧 𝐿𝑜𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑡 ! 👤 @Sorare
    Image

    April 8th 2022

    52 Retweets327 Likes
  • It looks like Adidas are going to drop an NFT collection…

    Twitter avatar for @adidasoriginalsadidas Originals @adidasoriginals
    The new age of originality is here. See what’s waiting for you in Ozworld 👀 Coming soon.
    ozworld

    April 5th 2022

    1,161 Retweets4,057 Likes
  • FTX are in talks to invest in indian gaming startup MPL. They have several popular video game titles and a popular fantasy cricket league product.

    Twitter avatar for @refsrcManish Singh @refsrc
    Scoop: FTX, the $32B crypto exchange, is in talks to back Indian fantasy sports startup MPL. The Bengaluru-headquartered firm is working on play-to-earn games.
    FTX in talks to invest in Indian gaming startup MPL – TechCrunchThe Indian startup, known for its large portfolio of cards and fantasy-based games, plans to launch play-to-earn titles.techcrunch.com

    April 3rd 2022

    10 Retweets79 Likes

Great reads, great tweeting and more general ‘stuff’ that could impact you

  • Logan Paul starts a marketplace where you can own a fraction of a collectible.

    Twitter avatar for @LoganPaulLogan Paul @LoganPaul
    Introducing my next company, Liquid Marketplace (@LiquidMarketpl) — you can now own a piece of the rarest collectibles in the world. By fractionalizing expensive assets, we’ve essentially made it possible for ANYONE to own ANYTHING
    liquidmarketplace.io

    April 5th 2022

    396 Retweets6,522 Likes
  • Wild

    Twitter avatar for @lennysanLenny Rachitsky | lennysan.eth @lennysan
    "There are roughly 27m software developers in the world. Only about 18k of them, or 0.07%, work on crypto or web3 every month. Those 18,000 active engineers have created $2 trillion in market cap across the top 100 projects - $112m of value per person." —@ttunguz

    April 4th 2022

    158 Retweets832 Likes
  • NFTs are in the read only phase of their evolution. Great chart from Andrew.

    Twitter avatar for @AndrewSteinwoldAndrew Steinwold @AndrewSteinwold
    NFTs are in the "read-only web" phase of their evolution I can't tell you what the next phases are and how exactly NFTs will evolve but 99% of people on earth didn't know about NFTs 12 months ago So what I can confidently say is that this is just the beginning
    Image

    April 4th 2022

    47 Retweets160 Likes

Thanks!

Thanks for reading the latest edition of the Sporting Crypto newsletter. I’m really happy to see so many people enjoying it and sharing it with their networks. If you enjoyed this, please tell your friends who might be interested - and share it on social :)

This newsletter is for informational purposes only and is not financial or business advice. These are my thoughts & opinions and do not represent the opinions of any other business or entity.

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Sporting Crypto - April 11th 2022: GOALS Raise $15m Seed Round to Build Multiplayer Soccer Game
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