The Brazilian sports sponsorship industry is now worth $1B per year, according to a new report from Sponsorship Today. The report examined more than 300 national deals and found that the market had grown by more than 200% since '05. The rate of growth, however, is now slowing having seen a major surge in the past three years with domestic deals for the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Report author Simon Rines said, "The major deals for 2014 are now pretty much complete, and it is difficult to see many more tier one deals for Rio 2016. There are still options in food, energy and oil, but in the latter categories the big domestic brands are state-owned, which isn’t necessarily a problem given that it is in the political interests of the country to fund the Games." He added, "State-owned companies do have significant sponsorship portfolios used for business reasons. Certainly Petrobras would be a candidate for an oil deal, but it has a significant domestic portfolio already." The report also shows that two of the country’s leading football clubs, Corinthians and Flamengo, are currently without primary sponsors. Both are holding out for major deals, but no club has matched Corinthians’ $23M deal, signed two years ago, with pharmaceutical group Hypermarcas. However, the findings do suggest that one of the legacies of hosting the world’s biggest sporting events will be a much more mature market in which brands are more likely to understand the value of sponsorship, and rights holders will be more professional in helping them achieve it (Sponsorship Today).
