Brazilian football wasn’t born from betting firms | OneFootball

Brazilian football was not born from betting companies. But in just a few years, executives managed to act as if it could no longer live without them.

The dependency was built at an impressive speed. Betting companies arrived offering money and took over jerseys, advertising boards, sports shows, broadcasts, and even the everyday vocabulary of fans. Clubs accepted it. Federations accepted it. The advertising market accepted it. And almost no one seemed interested in asking what would happen when that source of money ceased to exist.

Flamengo, Vasco, Fluminense, and Botafogo had already built their histories long before any betting company discovered that Brazilian football could be a gigantic showcase. They won titles, developed players, filled stadiums, and spanned generations without needing to turn fans’ passion into a betting opportunity.

The problem was not just accepting money from betting companies. It was creating dependency around it.

Executives began to incorporate sponsorship revenue as if it were permanent. Contracts were treated as a structural solution to problems that were, in fact, administrative. Payrolls grew, projects were set up, and commitments were made based on a market that seemed inexhaustible.

It wasn’t.

When the sponsor becomes a financial crutch

Brazilian football has long struggled to separate extraordinary revenue from recurring revenue. When an industry appears willing to pour money into the sport, the usual reaction is to increase expenses before consolidating the structure.

That happened at different times with television, prize money, and other major commercial deals. With betting companies, the pace was even faster.

The result is that clubs began to look at betting companies not just as sponsors, but as part of their financial model.

The bill comes due when the money disappears

Starting in October, with changes to betting regulations, the market will have to reorganize. The provisional measure announced by the federal government provides for the removal of platforms from the market and mandates immediate changes to advertising in the sector.

Regardless of the political dispute surrounding the measure, there is a sports-related question that does not depend on any government: why have so many clubs reached a point where the departure of a sponsor threatens their planning?

The answer involves a lack of predictability, but also administrative culture.

It is very convenient to blame the market when the money runs out. More difficult is acknowledging that executives agreed to build budgets dependent on an industry whose presence was, by nature, subject to regulatory changes.

The fans did not create this dependency. They were not the ones who signed the contracts. They were not the ones who projected payrolls counting on betting money.

Now, football will have to find out whether it knows how to survive without the crutch it helped build.

Because the game will go on.

The fans will go on.

The clubs will go on.

And the betting companies, like so many other sponsors that have passed through Brazilian football, were never its owners.

(*) Wilson Pimentel is a journalist, radio host, businessman, and co-founding partner of Agência RTI Esporte.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.