During this semester, it is possible to have a significant impact on football sponsorships. This is due to the new rules that will be established by the sports betting regulation project and the sports betting MP, which will determine which companies will be allowed to display their brands. Currently, the sports betting sector is one of the most important for clubs and competitions in the country.
Among the points addressed in the Provisional Measure (MP) that President Lula is about to sign is the requirement for a license to operate in the country. To obtain the permit, it will be necessary to pay a fee of R$ 30 million, valid for five years. Companies that do not carry out this procedure will face several difficulties to continue operating, such as the ban on advertising in any format.
It is worth noting that, at the moment, sports betting sponsors 39 of the 40 clubs belonging to the A and B Series (only Cuiabá is an exception). This phenomenon is not recent. Last season, there was a 45% increase in the number of sponsorships in Serie A, according to the 2022 Sponsorship Map study, carried out by Ibope Repucom.
The number of contracts between betting sites and clubs jumped from 11 in 2021 to 16 the following year. In general, the sports betting sector was the third most present in team uniforms last year, behind the Real Estate and Construction and Financial sectors.
To get an idea of the segment’s potential: in the first quarter of this year alone, the number of sponsorships has already grown again, reaching 19 at the present time.
Fábio Wolff, managing partner of Wolff Sports & Marketing, which intermediates advertising contracts in sports, commented: “Today, the money that bookmakers invest in football is very important. In many of the contracts, the houses are the sponsors main ones. So the market is very dependent on their money, through sponsorship”.
Sports betting MP can generate new opportunities for clubs
However, it is important to point out that the sports betting regulation project will not necessarily have a negative impact on clubs. In fact, it can provide a new form of finance for them.
According to sources at the Ministry of Finance, the Provisional Measure that will be published in the next few days will also address the transfer of funds to clubs, federations and confederations. For this specific matter, Law 13.756/1998, better known as the National Public Security Fund Law or Lottery Law, will be used.
This law establishes the distribution of amounts collected from lotteries and determines that 1.63% of the value of online bets must be allocated “to Brazilian sports entities that assign the rights to use their denominations, their brands, their emblems, their anthems, its symbols and the like for publicizing and executing the fixed odds betting lottery”.
For comparison purposes, the Brazilian Olympic Committee (COB) receives 1.7% of the value of bets, according to the model provided for in the Law of Lotteries. In 2021, COB was entitled to receive BRL 315.2 million, of which BRL 165 million was distributed to 33 different sports confederations.
