Play to Earn: 10 Sports Themed Games to Observe in 2022

Play2Moon tracked 10 sports-themed play to earn games for their current success or their potential to break out in the coming year.

Fantasy sports are one of the categories in play to earn that built on the popularity of sports NFT collections. Sports fans gave rise to Sorare and NBA card collections. 

Fantasy sports can unite games both based on topics and the nature of the metaverse built. Sports NFTs usually center around popular athletes and teams. Fantasy sports play to earn is one of the arenas where sports celebrities participate and claim their NFT ownership. Fantasy sports with full mechanics are mostly outside the scope of play to earn games. Rarity or breeding mechanics, as well as team management are the most widely used approaches to in-game earnings and tokenized scoring.

Play2Moon picked the 10 fantasy sports play to earn games deserving attention in the coming year. The list will be updated following new launches.

Sorare Fantasy Spots Collectibles

Sorare turned into one of the big specialized NFT platforms. But the platform is actually a fantasy football game. 

The Sorare game hinges on team building and statistics to get ahead in virtual championships. The Sorare resources can be reached at:

What Makes Sorare Stand Out

The Sorare fantasy football stands out mostly due to having one of the bigger, well-visited hubs. The game does not offers a sports metaverse experience, but a form of gamified rarity. Sorare stands out for its listing of actual partner teams.

What are the Pros of Sorare

Sorare offers a liquid NFT marketplace with an immediately available play to earn model. Sorare is marketed widely and has become one of the tools for widespread blockchain game adoption.

What are the Cons of Sorare

The Sorare project relies on ETH for its operations and liquidity. Sorare is yet to release a native token, and instead relies on outside financing through venture capital. Sorare only offers earning opportunities through card ownership. Successful play may hinge on acquiring relatively expensive cards.

NFBet on Solana

NFBet builds a cartoon-based fantasy sports metaverse with sports casino features added. The game divides its play modes, to potentially avoid problems with local gambling laws. However, NFBet on Solana offers the potential for sports betting through a crypto wallet.

NFBet can be explored at:

What Makes NFBet on Solana Stand Out

The NFBet collection of games will use the Solana network, potentially allowing for lower fees. The game has a well thought out reward structure, with special events for NFT owners.

What are the Pros of NFBet

NFBet offers a less serious approach to fantasy sports. The sports betting option will be anonymous and decentralized. Rewards and exclusivity will make the game more engaging.

What are the Cons of NFBet

The game is still in the pre-launch phase and will have to achieve its token placement and price discovery. NFBet is in its initial stages and may take some time to build a larger community and have its items and championships accrue more locked-in value.

Soccer Manager Elite by XAYA

Soccer Manager Elite is a sports-themed game by Xaya Technology, the startup behind the Taurion metaverse game. The e-sports game will use the Polygon (MATIC) network, an Ethereum-compatible blockchain built especially for lower fees.

Soccer Manager Elite is part of the XAYA Technology social media presence:

What Makes XAYA Games Stand Out

The Soccer Manager Elite is just one part of the XAYA Technology portfolio. The game creator is also behind Huntercoin and mentions the older project, Namecoin, as lining among its collection of activities.

What are the Pros of Soccer Manager Elite

The SME game will be community-driven, with the potential to vote on game developments and earnings potential. The game offers many roles – manager, club owner, trader or speculator. Gameplay will include buying and selling club shares.

What are the Cons of Soccer Manager Elite

The Soccer Manager Coins are not yet released officially as a digital asset, and there is no clarity on which assets will be needed for the game. The project has a beta version for testers and may go through significant changes until the game takes off.

Blocklete Games: Digital Golfers

Blocklete game studios is another project to use the cartoonish style, this time for fantasy golf. The approach resembles NFT collections where variation and features are selected for rarity.

Blocklete Games offerings can be reached at:

What Makes Digital Golfers Stand Out

Digital Golfers combines a grind-style game mechanics with skill accumulation and collectible playable characters. Mobile access means the game can be played in 15-minute stretches, potentially becoming an accessible hit like Axie Infinity.

What are the Pros of Digital Golfers

Digital Golfers is a game with highly active marketing activity. The dedicated team is busy with giveaways and other incentives to grow the community. The game requires skill in addition to investing in collectibles.

What are the Cons of Digital Golfers

Digital Golfers has a relatively small Discord community of under 5,000 subscribers. The game uses the Flow Blockchain, requiring a dedicated wallet. The games are mostly relying on NFTs and share little information about reward tokenization, which may be an easier tool to lock in earnings through trading.

Zed Run Horse Track Game on Polygon

Zed Run is a collectible and horseracing game, using simulated horse breeding mechanics. Zed Run uses the Polygon network to issue NFTs, but is yet to introduce a native reward token. For now, Zed Run relies on the appreciation of rare NFTs produced in the game, as well as ETH rewards.

Zed Run reaches out for marketing and updates through:

What Makes Zed Run Stand Out

Zed Run uses a non-standard sport of choice – horse racing, to apply the NFT and fantasy sports game model. Zed Run is also a game-first project that is yet to introduce a native token.

What are the Pros of Zed Run

Zed Run has a working game with regular organized championships. The community is rather supportive, with tips on selection and competition strategies.

What are the Cons of Zed Run

Zed Run started off with a token-free model, which may be confusing for some play to earn enthusiasts. The rewards in ETH also require gas, as well as moving the asset from the Polygon network if players want to use the regular Ethereum network. Zed Run has finally decided to issue a token, which may have unexpected effects for the game’s economy.

Golf Goonz

Golf Goonz combines the CryptoPunks aesthetic with the idea of virtual golphers. The game brings another attempt to popularize virtual tournaments, through competitive gameplay and strategic use of crypto collectibles.

The Golf Goonz team communicates through:

What Makes Golf Goonz Stand Out

Golf Goonz stood out in 2021 with one of the most actively growing NFT collections on OpenSea. The gamified NFTs collection is still in the early airdrop stage, and is making the rounds as possibly an up and coming game.

What are the Pros of Golf Goonz

Golf Goonz is an early stage collection with the potential to turn into a playable game. Accessing early airdrops may turn into unexpected earnings.

What are the Cons of Golf Goonz

Golf Goonz is another game starting with a simple NFT collection, and there is no telling where the project can go. Golf Goonz relies on NFTs for its value, accruing about 10 ETH in turnover for a week. This project has slim financing and relies on hype and OpenSea trades.

Boxing Boyz Metaverse

Boxing Boyz Metaverse aims to be a sports simulation game. In its initial stage, the game started with an exclusive NFT mint and a rarity rating. Boxing Boyz also made a splash on OpenSea.

Boxing Boyz can be reached at

What Makes Boxing Boyz Stand Out

Boxing Boyz has been linked to NFT ownership, especially the Bored Apes collection. The potential sports game is widely marketed and managed to become prominent on OpenSea.

What are the Pros of Boxing Boyz

The Boxing Boyz environment may have a similar appeal as the Bored Apes, creating a club-like culture. The project is also NFT-first, with trading mostly happening for exclusive and rare images. Such collections may appeal to buyers not interested in trading regular crypto tokens.

What are the Cons of Boxing Boyz

Boxing Boyz promises a sports game, but starts off with mostly a pure NFT model. If a game is coming, it may be slow to arrive. The lack of a native token may mean gamified earnings or yield farming won’t be possible, as with other games.

Fanfury

The Fanfury game is a fantasy sports universe utilizing the Terra (LUNA) blockchain. Fanfury is a complete ecosystem using the FURY token, building up reward pools and making the best of a community of players.

Fanfury details available at:

What Makes Fanfury Stand Out

Access to the Terra blockchain means the Fanfury game can have access to one of the most powerful blockchain ecosystems. The LUNA token and the dollar-denominated UST can help with liquidity and exchanges between assets.

What are the Pros of Fanfury

Fanfury produces an engaging game that combines crypto finance and data from actual sports events. The game has built PVP and multiplayer versions. Users pool their funds and pay a small fee, then winners get paid in FURY tokens for their game success.

What are the Cons of Fanfury

The Fanfury ecosystem will require a Terra wallet and will use a different set of decentralized exchanges and services. In early 2022, the game was still in limited closed testing and the FURY token was using a testnet version.

The NFTeams

The NFTeams is a cartoon-style simulated sports and cards game, which is being tested in beta at the start of 2022. NFTeams uses the Ethereum blockchain and ETH rewards, organizing monthly competitions for owners of one of the 10,000 unique teams created. Winners of each competition round receive the pooled rewards from participants.

The NFTeams project can be reached at

Why NFTeams Stands Out

NFTeams is one of the projects with signs of active building and ongoing beta gameplay with somewhat limited marketing. NFTeams goes beyond NFT images and builds teams with random characteristics. Thus, some teams have exceptional rarity, though all are unique. NFTeams stands out for its cartoonish art style for its fantasy teams, which are not derived from real sports.

What are the Pros of NFTeams

NFTeams is building a community, with future item drops coming for team owners. Ownership confers a voting mechanism. The game offers regular chances of participation with relatively low fees.

What are the Cons of NFTeams

Game accessibility may still depend on ETH gas fees at the moment. The game also depends on early team buying, and the initial mints have already passed, so buying a team may require joining the secondary market.

Oneto11 Fantasy Sports Collection

Oneto11 Studios is a larger enterprise that is gaming-first, but dedicated to adding a blockchain component for a complete play to earn ecosystem. Oneto11 is a multi-game project with a fantasy sports portfolio of several thematic games, including football, cricket, basketball and baseball.

Oneto11 Studios reaches out via:

What Makes Oneto11 Stand Out

Oneto11 is a complete game studio going beyond sports simulations, including casual mobile games, gamified learning and NFT games.

What are the Pros of Oneto11 Products

Oneto11 aims to bring versatile gaming experience with a unified wallet. The project is a well-established gaming company with interests in combining gaming and DeFi.

What are the Cons of Oneto11 Products

Oneto11 has not mentioned any public blockchain to be used for its games. The risk is that the startup will use a proprietary wallet and its own blockchain ecosystem, making it inaccessible for outside wallets. Oneto11 claims to build cross-chain functionalities, but its white paper mentions a game-integrated wallet. For now, this platform may diverge from the usual path of development for play to earn games.

The fantasy game selection for play to earn may change with time as more projects pick out the model that works for them. Both game quality and crypto-economics may vary widely, as well as the type of technology and assets offered.

FAQ

Q: What is a fantasy sports game?

A: The fantasy sports game in play to earn may vary, often starting as an NFT collection. Fantasy sports also crossover to card games, based on statistics and team strategies.

Q: What are the top networks for play to earn fantasy sports games?

A: Ethereum is still the leading network for various play to earn games. The popularity and accessibility of ETH help with marketing new collections.

Q: Are fantasy sports risky?

A: Fantasy sports games often sell NFT collections long before any additional products. NFT trading is extremely risky and may be illiquid. Do your own research when joining a game to avoid losses from both fungible tokens and NFTs, as well as outsized fees.

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