GMB - Marjosports, as an example, has already suspended sponsorships to Goiás and Corinthians. It is a way for the industry to stop the internal financial crisis, but this decision directly affects the cash of Brazilian clubs. How do you see the situation of this ripple effect?
Eduardo Carlezzo - We have an extremely worrying moment for this commercial alliance between the football industry and the sports betting sector. With the cancellation of competitions, the clubs will have, in addition to a severe cash flow mismatch, a drop in the estimated total revenue for the year 2020, which will leave a relevant gap in the accounting, especially of the Brazilian Serie A clubs that have a diversification of revenue sources. Thus, in the absence of competitions and, consequently, capacity for brand exposure, sponsoring companies tend to seek a renegotiation of contracts with clubs. And since there are no games, there are no bets to be made. So, the entire chain is affected, from clubs to sports betting companies, as their markets are simply stalled.
Do you think that it is possible to have a wave of bookmakers suspending sponsorships for national teams? Why?
For the reasons mentioned above, it is possible that there is a snowball and that other sponsorships are suspended. Unfortunately, the moment we live in is serious, with difficult repercussions in sport, so we can imagine that other sponsorship contracts will be renegotiated.
When do you believe that bookmakers will be able to return to normality and get back all the money that they stopped earning from the cancellation of sporting events?
It is not a possible forecast to be made at this moment, as we simply do not know when sports competitions, whether in Brazil or abroad, will occur again.
The leading betting sites in the world have big losses on the stock exchanges index. What consequences can this generate?
All the stock exchanges in the world and the most diverse business sectors are seeing their numbers melt in several countries. The tragedy is global. In the case of companies focused on sports betting, the drop is also high simply because there is no sports competition, they cannot offer bets. Therefore, they are not moving money. It is important to see how they will recover from the moment the competitions return, since perhaps not all of them can finish.
Do you believe that medium or small companies can fail if this pandemic persists?
It is an indisputable fact that companies from the most diverse sectors are going to close and the sports betting industry will not pass through this; so that those that are not well capitalized to face this turbulent moment may close the doors.
Source: Exclusive GMB
