Bookmakers have invested and continue to invest a lot of money in the sports advertising market. Of the 20 teams in Serie A of the Brazilian Championship, 19 of them have gambling site brands on their shirts. Covering the scope, of the 60 clubs that play in the first three divisions of the national championship, 51 are sponsored by the betting sites. Sponsorships don't end there, there are competition naming rights, players hired as ambassadors, sports media, and so on.
Taking into account only the Serie A teams, according to a survey carried out by the sports marketing agency NeoBrand, ten houses invested BRL 327 million (US$ 66) in the clubs to publicize their brands in seven different places on the shirts. Of the sponsorships, 11 are master, that is, the main ones. The market, at the moment, is heated, but, according to experts, a bubble is being created that will burst at some point. However, that moment has not yet arrived.
The "burst", means that the brands will reach what they call "stage B" and will no longer need to expose themselves so much to become known. Consequently, the offer of money to clubs through sponsorships will decrease, which should also be in smaller quantities.
Fábio Wolff, managing partner of Wolff Sports & Marketing, says that the market, due to bets, has been selling sponsorship quotas for values greater than those normally practiced. Some companies even offer deals to clubs that are already sponsored by other houses to remove that exhibition space from the competitor.
Wolff also says that because the sector is not yet regulated, many companies have not yet come to Brazil and that, when they do, they will also want to invest in sponsorships.
"The betting segment has been putting a lot of money into sponsorships. They are contracts with total nonsense from the amounts charged for other segments, that is, the market is heated for bookmakers. And as the sector is not yet regulated, the big players still didn't set foot in Brazil. When everything is defined, they will want to sponsor," he said.
The specialist also explains what stage B is: "They (companies) need to make their brand known, the moment this is resolved, stage B begins. They start to focus on other types of partnerships that result in activations and not both brand exposure and sponsorships."
For Fernando Trevisan, specialist in sports management and marketing and director of Trevisan Escola de Negócios, it is not healthy to depend on just one sector. And football is overly dependent on bookmakers.
"It is not good for you to depend so much on a single sector. There may be a sectoral crisis that will directly impact your business. It is very important to diversify sources of revenue. And Brazilian football is excessively dependent on a single sector, which is a sector that is boiling and that a lot still has to happen," he said.
Trevisan also says that the regulation of the betting sector itself may bring some prohibitions to the sponsorship market, as is the case in other parts of the world, due to issues of addiction and mental health. Something similar to what happens with the beverage and cigarette sectors, which cannot be linked to sports activities.
"If we look at the more developed markets, how will our future be, for example what happened in England, which ended up banning bet companies from being master sponsors. They can have sponsorship agreements, but not on the front of the shirt, not as the main sponsor," concluded Trevisan.
Source: O Globo
