How to Start Sorare: Free Cards, Real Competition and What NFTs Change

ByNFT Video Games Editorial Team

Sorare is the most mainstream on-ramp in blockchain gaming: officially licensed football, NBA and MLB fantasy games where the cards you draft are NFTs — and where you can play a real, complete game for free before ever touching a crypto wallet. The honest split is simple: your free Common cards are real gameplay but not assets; the cards worth owning cost money, and the difference between the two is the whole point of the exercise.

What Sorare is#

A fantasy sports game from Sorare SAS, running since 2019, where you build five-card lineups and score points from athletes’ real-world performances each Game Week. The collectible layer is the twist: player cards exist as NFTs in scarce tiers (Limited, Rare, Super Rare, Unique), with licenses from hundreds of clubs across football plus the NBA and MLB. Cards live on Solana (migrated from StarkEx in October 2025) and ETH balances ride on Base. Current status sits on the Sorare registry profile.

Requirements#

  • An email address and mobile number — standard account signup on sorare.com or the official iOS/Android app.
  • No wallet to start — free Common cards are assigned during onboarding and need nothing crypto-related at all.
  • A way to pay, only when you choose to own cards — Sorare’s Cash Wallet takes debit/credit cards, PayPal and bank transfer (ID-verified via Mangopay); crypto users can fund ETH (Base) or SOL wallets instead.
  • Age 18+ in most regions — the marketplace involves real-money purchases.

The start#

  1. Sign up at sorare.com or in the official app — email plus phone verification.
  2. Pick your favourite clubs during onboarding — Sorare assigns five free Common cards from them, and completing the tutorial and first competitions can unlock up to twelve.
  3. Enter your first competitions with the Commons — the tutorial walks through lineup building and how real-world performances become points.
  4. Learn the scoring and division structure before spending anything: Commons can’t be traded and earn reduced points, so they are practice cards, not an investment.
  5. Only when the loop makes sense: activate a Cash Wallet (or connect ETH/SOL) and buy your first Limited card on the official marketplace — auctions for new mints, peer-to-peer for secondaries.

What the NFT layer actually adds#

  • Scarce cards unlock real competition — divisions above the free tier require NFT cards, and prize pools (cash, cards and merch) scale with card scarcity tier.
  • Cards are tradeable assets — a player’s price moves with real-world performance, injuries and transfers; you can sell a card you bought — unlike Commons, which are account-bound forever.
  • The chain is mostly invisible — Solana holds the NFTs and Base holds ETH balances, but everyday play happens inside Sorare’s own wallet screens; you only touch chain mechanics if you withdraw to an external wallet.
  • It is still a market — card prices crash as well as spike, and a bench of injured players is worth less next week. The registry’s discipline applies here more than anywhere: buy utility you understand, not upside you hope for.

Safety notes#

Sorare’s size makes it a phishing magnet. Fake “card giveaways,” “free ETH” and lookalike marketplace clones target new managers constantly. Only transact inside sorare.com or the official app; Sorare never asks for a wallet seed phrase on the web, because you do not need an external wallet at all until you withdraw; and if you do connect one later, a signature request you didn’t initiate is a red flag — the marketplace never needs unlimited approvals to list or buy a card.

Verified September 22, 2026 · Sources: Sorare help center (wallet/onboarding), sorare.com beginner guide, registry record · how we verify

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