Sorare too focused on expensive partnerships
Former French tech standard-bearer needs strategic rethink, Women's football on the rise, DAZN, Canada &Co
Hello, on Gaming&Co today:
Friday feature: Ex-unicorn Sorare too focused on big deals and costly partnerships
Rise of women's football = boom in female gamblers?
Douce France: DAZN wants to continue in the market
Canada: ideal market for dot coms
News in brief: Partouche in Benin, ZETurf, LeoVegas, IGT, Japan
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Sorare struggles to live up to the hype
One-time tech unicorn is suffering from poor UX while NFT hype has moved on
The harder they fall: Sorare was predicted to hit the tech, finance and startup heights just four years ago, but as reports of its financial difficulties filtered through last week, Sebastian Paris, COO of the marketing agency bwise Media, commented on Linkedin that one of the reasons for the group’s situation could be its “lack of integrations/partnerships with the most relevant platforms for player data, statistics and scores - such as 365Scores, Sofascore, Flashscore, FotMob, BeSoccer, OneFootball, LiveScore. Those apps and websites are crucial pillars in most betting companies' digital strategies”.
Responding to Gaming&Co’s follow up on these points, Paris said: “Football-focused (live score) apps and websites are the strongest digital channels to find your audience and engage with them frequently and in highly targeted ways. There could be many unique ways of integrating Sorare's NFT products into those channels, but as far as I know Sorare never really tried working or partnering with them, which I believe to be a huge miss when it comes to picking the right customer acquisition and retention channels/partnerships”.
And while a lack of traffic from those live score brands might be one reason why Sorare has not attracted enough players to produce meaningful returns, many also blamed its poor UX.
Get the cards out: Pierric Blanchet, CEO of the Gambling Cockpit, said Sorare seems to suffer from a number of problems. “Its UX/UI is the first major issue, players have great difficulty in identifying competitions they can take part in without having to get their credit cards out. They try once, twice and in the end they just churn.”
Market sentiment and levels of interest in NFTs and the web 3 market have also been negative factors for Sorare. Indeed they are far from what they were in 2021, when Sorare raised $685m and was valued at more than $4bn.
Sectoral blues
This is despite Sorare adopting iGaming-like marketing policies and recruiting affiliate managers. Blanchet says he’s “unsure whether it has worked for the group, despite the DFS affiliate and information ecosystem being a vast space” in which operators can reach millions of fans.
Not the only one: Another broad point is that “Sorare’s travails are much discussed, as if it was the only company in the space, but on a sectoral basis we can see that brands like Stables (part of PMU) have also been suffering”, adds Blanchet.
At the coal face: Furthermore, if the NFT-web 3 market is struggling and could be on the verge of entering a period of consolidation, Sorare will always be one of its most obvious canaries attracting most of the coverage.
Returning to Sebastian Paris’s point about Sorare not advertising on live score platforms, it’s also worth asking if the group has to promote itself on those sites to attract large-enough liquidity levels that will generate the volumes and revenues it seeks.
Paris said those channels “alone won’t guarantee success and high liquidity, but they are a very important channel, not only for betting brands. Again, a huge miss from Sorare to not focus on these more”.
Different customer base: Crypto-gambling is often associated with high-spending players, especially in online casino but also in sports betting circles, and the fact that Sorare has struggled could also be related to the age of its original user base, which has always been very young. In addition, “there is a major difference between a web 3 NFT fantasy bettor and a crypto punter who wants to bet on sports”, notes one G&Co contact.
For Paris, Sorare can’t be compared to crypto sportsbooks. The latter “have proven to not only work extremely well in grey/black markets and attracting VIP players due to their advantages in crypto deposits/withdrawals, fewer financial KYC burdens and attracting players with substantial crypto holdings to play.” Instead, said Paris, “Sorare was betting hard on NFTs, which obviously lost the majority of their hype and haven't developed much since.”
Low key, high profile: For other industry observers, Sorare also inhabits an in-between space between fantasy betting and ‘regular’ sportsbook, and has been strongly criticised for it, especially in France, its home market.
G&Co’s industry source added: “That position means it has focused on high profile and costly marketing partnerships with sports leagues and clubs that give it great visibility, but this also means it is advertising its wares while constantly deflecting questions about its ‘gambling-like’ operating model.”
Paris added that “Sorare significantly overspent on brand ambassadors and sponsorships, as well as paying insane amounts for their rights - which they were able to renegotiate and get substantial discounts later.”
Sorare has now exited the top 40/120 of the most promising French tech startups and although its CEO Nicolas Julia has talked of plans to float the business in 2025 without resorting to a third round of funding, it’s difficult to see what value a listing would generate.
Still, the company’s lobbying to exempt it from the strict regulations real money gambling companies are subject to in France has been highly successful.
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Women’s football on the rise
The world’s most popular sport will see if it can reach female punters in ways other sports can’t
Empty summer? A summer without a major men’s football international tournament in the calendar is usually a quiet one for sports betting-focused operators, but trends suggest the upcoming Women’s Euros may well help fill the void. An OLBG/YouGov survey released earlier this year found that 16% of UK adults who planned to place bets in 2025 expected to wager on the Women’s Euros, which starts on July 2. That put the tournament ahead of traditionally popular betting events like rugby’s Six Nations (10%) and the NFL Super Bowl (9%).
OLBG CEO Richard Moffat said: “The surge in popularity of women’s football is well documented and it seems that betting patterns are starting to follow suit. Undoubtedly, the fact there’s a major tournament this summer including England and Wales will drive interest among bettors.”
Recent tournaments show a clear upward trend. Entain reported that 1.5 million bets were placed on the Women’s Euros in 2022 - a fivefold increase on 2017 - with a sixfold jump in female bettors.
This latter trend continued into the 2023 Women’s World Cup, where female punters placed 21% of bets on England’s first three group-stage matches with Ladbrokes and Coral, compared to 17% in Euro 2022, and 13% during the 2019 World Cup.
Untapped half: The direction of travel is clear, but women sport bettors remain a somewhat untapped market. While 36% of UK gamblers (excluding lottery-only) are female, they are significantly less active in sports betting than men, according to the YouGov Global Gambling Profiles study. Under a third of women gamblers (31%) questioned by the pollster had placed bets in the last 30 days, compared with 55% of men.
Outdated: But it’s important for operators not to hone in on the gender of bettors too much, warns Flutter. “The outdated idea that women’s sports only attract women is fading fast,” the company said this week. “At Flutter, we’ve seen the demand for women’s sport across the globe more than ever. This is more than a cultural shift; it’s a commercial shift.”
For Mike Forslund, head of sales at data integration firm Odds88, the opportunity for operators isn’t around gender, but tapping into the passion fans have for women’s football.
“A new audience is definitely emerging,” he told Insider Sport, “and it’s younger, socially conscious bettors and fans who follow women’s football exclusively. Increased media coverage, improved betting markets, and the sport’s growing competitiveness are attracting diverse demographics.”
DAZN still eyes France activity
Streaming platform wants to stay in the French market but is facing stiff opposition from clubs
Staying put: DAZN wants to remain involved in French football despite a first year of activity in the country that has been badly received by football fans and, more importantly for DAZN, French clubs. The smaller ones that are highly dependent on TV money to pay their player and staff wages are undertsood to be deeply unhappy with the group.
As the country’s Ligue de football professional football league (LFP) works to set up a production unit and distribution deals in time for the start of the new season on 15 August, L’Informé reports that DAZN is willing to offer LFP €111m over two years to produce and commercialise the new channel’s content.
In return, it would bring to the table the 600,000 customers who it says have subscribed to its Ligue 1 offering in the last 12 months and “take a cut of the revenue once it had reached a certain level”. DAZN is also the official broadcaster for France’s Betclic Elite basketball league, which is included as part of the ongoing talks.
PNG: One major stumbling block however is that DAZN “is largely persona non grata in French football”, says L’Informé, and while its proposal has not been completely dismissed, a number of club bosses are not interested in working with the Len Blatvatnik-owned group.
The reason for their resentment is DAZN’s decision to withhold half the February payment (€35m) it owed to LFP, due to its unhappiness at what it considered was the clubs’ lack of goodwill in relation to providing access to players and high levels of illegal streaming of Ligue 1 matches.
DAZN is due to pay €70m and a break fee of €85m by the end of June if it is not involved in LFP Media’s plans.
Recall, last week Nicolas de Tavernost said the new Ligue 1 channel will be ready for 15 August, but in his comments to French media, he named longstanding broadcasters such as Canal+ and beIN Sports as potential partners, but not DAZN.
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Canada’s ideal setting for dot com brands
Survey results show reach of unlicensed operators with authorities highly tolerant of activities
Canada grey: The majority of online gamblers in Alberta and British Columbia (BC) are betting on unregulated sites, according to a new study commissioned by the Canadian Gaming Association (CGA). In Alberta, nearly 90% of the gamblers surveyed by pollsters Ipsos reported using unregulated platforms within a recent three-month period. Only 10.4% said they exclusively used the province’s sole regulated site, Play Alberta. The channelisation rate was just 22.7%.
BC showed a slightly stronger result, with 39.6% of respondents using the government-run PlayNow site, and 23.9% using it exclusively. Still, 60.4% relied solely on unregulated sites.
The study, based on responses from 2,600 gamblers, also showed over half of those using unregulated platforms in both provinces mistakenly believed the sites were government-approved.
Hands-off: While the use of unregulated dot com gambling operators is technically illegal in Canada, regulators have typically adopted a hands-off approach. Enforcement against offshore grey market brands has been rare, and many continue to advertise and operate freely.
As Alberta prepares to launch a commercial online gambling market, it will hope to emulate Ontario, which opened its market in 2022 and now has a channelisation rate of nearly 84%, having been as low as 30% prior to the new regime.
The province of Québec continues to be the setting for an ongoing war of words between private operators who want to see it regulated and Loto-Québec flatly refusing to countenance the idea.
The CGA survey is the latest of a series of industry warnings about the use of unlicensed operators across the globe, coming a week after the Betting & Gaming Council issued research on the potential impact of betting tax rises in the UK.
News shorts
Groupe Partouche has opened its first casino in sub-saharan Africa in Benin as part of the Sofitel Cotonou Marina Hotel & Spa in the country's capital. The group said the opening was “part of a broader vision of the government of Benin, which aims to position the country as a leading destination in West Africa for hotels, high-end leisure activities and responsible entertainment”.
Marion Hugé will take up her role as ZETurf’s new GM from July 1, having worked as Kindred/FDJ Integration Director for the past 18 months. ZETurf is the number 2 online horse racing operator in France and was acquired by FDJ in 2022 for €175m, Hugé will be tasked with strengthening the brand’s growth in both domestic and international settings.
Gustaf Hagman has stepped down as CEO of LeoVegas after 14 years. The group was founded by Hagman and Robin Ramm-Ericson in 2012 as a mobile-focused iGaming brand “with five mobile games”, said Hagman, before being acquired by MGM in 2022 for €604m and now operating in Europe under the BetMGM brand. It also acquired the gaming studio Push Gaming in 2023 and recently acquired the US business of the German operator Tipico. Mattias Wedar will replace Hagman as CEO.
IGT has renamed itself Brightstar Lottery to reflect its focus on lottery following the sale of its IGT Gaming subsidiary, which focused on iGaming and sports betting. The name change will take effect from 1 July. The company said “Brightstar will be a premier pure play lottery business designed to elevate lotteries and inspire players”.
Japan has asked eight countries to block sites offering online gambling to Japanese players. Online gambling is technically illegal in Japan, but the country is one of Asia’s most important grey markets. It issued its demands at jurisdictions such as Anjouan, Isle of Man and Costa Rica, where many unlicensed websites operate from.
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