JUE 28 DE MARZO DE 2024 - 20:44hs.
Online bookmakers sponsor several teams

Brazilian football clubs begin to explore the gaming market

Fourteen years after being villains of the Brazilian Championship of 2005 in the Whistle Mafia scandal*, bookmakers invade the national market with cash. Five of them are partners with more than half of Serie A clubs. The Ministry of Economy made available the first draft of the decree that will regulate betting in Brazil. The public consultation deadline expired last Friday. The advance comes 10 months after then-President Michel Temer sanctioned MP 846 on December 12 last year.

In Brazil, the deals are still small compared to teams from England, which have master sponsorship coming from bookmakers. But the tendency is for Brazilian football to follow the English League model. Of the 20 Premier League clubs, 10, or 50%, have bookmakers as their master sponsor: Aston Villa, Bournemouth, Brighton, Brunley, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leicester, Newcastle, Norwich, Watford, West Ham and Wolverhampton. The rate in the elite was 60% last season and reaches 70% in the second division.

The deals in Brazil are still shy. Flamengo signed with Sportbet.io until the end of the year. The digital partnership does not include exposure of the brand on the red-black shirt. It is focused on the club's social networks and the actions of the fan-club program. Payment depends on fans response and partner adhesion. The archival rival Fluminense signed with KB88, from Kashbet, and exposes the brand in the uniform.

The regulation is expected to leverage the budget of clubs damaged by the end of the financial injection of Caixa Econômica Federal. Jair Bolsonaro's government extinguished that sponsorship. The state bank has invested R$ 665 million (US$ 162m) in 35 clubs in the country since 2012, more than R$ 138 million (US$ 33.5m) in 2018. The trend is not exclusive to Brazil. In May, the Major League Soccer (MLS) became the first professional sports league in the United States and Canada to allow bookmaking sponsorships.

“It was clear that Caixa’s departure from the sector left a hole in the club accounts. Some failed to obtain a new sponsor in 2019, and even when they did, the values were lower. This sponsorship gap was eventually filled by digital banks and sports betting companies, which entered into trade agreements with several football clubs,” says sports law expert Eduardo Carlezzo in an interview with Correio.

Luciano Andrade Pinheiro, another lawyer consulted by the report, points out positive and negative points in the progress of the regulatory process. One is the need for the company to declare something of nothing in the authorization application - proof that it never operated illegally. “The measure is interesting, because the government will release a controversial activity and, if it authorized the operation of those who operate illegally, would be contributing to illegality in the sector,” notes the partner of Corrêa da Veiga Advogados.

One of the security features requires companies to set aside a reserve of R$ 6 million (US$ 1.45m) as a guarantee for the payment of prizes. Two topics are controversial, such as the limitation of payment for the assignment of use of football symbols used in betting. “This is a mistake, because any club, whether football or not, or any athlete whose name is used by bookmakers should be paid for it,” says Luciano Andrade Pinheiro. The lawyer points out another sensitive point: the regulation of gambling advertising provided in the text: "Children and adolescents must be preserved, so the prohibition of advertising that induces the idea that gambling is easy money is indispensable", criticizes Luciano Pinheiro.


* Whistle Mafia = Dissolved on September 23, 2005 by the Federal Police, the result manipulation scheme was led by referee Edílson Pereira de Carvalho and changed the classification of Serie A after rescheduling 11 games in which he participated. Nagib Fayad, or Gibbon, Whistle Mafia mentor, and Judge Paulo Jose Danelon were also involved. Edilson and Danelon interfered with the results of the matches in which they were scheduled to favor the players, led by Fayad. The referees received about R$ 10,000 (US$ 2,500) per fraudulent match.

Four questions for ...

Bruno Maia, specialist in business and new technologies in sports

What is your opinion about the arrival of bookmakers in football?
It only complements the movement that is happening worldwide and the entry into the segment with a lot of financial power. This will not match our competitive condition with European football, it certainly will not, but it will narrow the gap a bit.

How will this revenue reach the teams?
In the form of sponsorship, or, what I find even more important, by the varying incomes it can generate for clubs. Increasingly, we are experiencing a time when brands relate to football clubs seeking conversion, increasing results from the real engagement capacity that clubs can generate and also with new rights such as broadcast rights, use club brands for these platforms.

Should this generate a new audience?
Bets end up fostering a new game-tracking language, which I call narrative. Talk a lot with the new generations working with statistics, probability. This is very important for younger people who have it in other sports, and football has less. This helps to renew public.

And what about the safety issue?
There are important gaming safety, regulatory, and control issues that need to be applied, but they come in tow, everyone together in one move. I am a great enthusiast of this whole story.

Current partnerships:

- Casa de Apostas: Botafogo, Flamengo, Santos, Bahia e Cruzeiro

- NetBet: Fortaleza e Vasco

- Sportsbet.io: Flamengo

- 188BET: Atlético-MG

- MarjoSports: Corinthians

- KB88.com: Fluminense

Source: Superesportes