Palmeiras Closes Six Stadium Sponsorship Deals, Hopes To Sign Rest By Next Year

Brazilian club Palmeiras "has closed six sponsorship deals" for its new Arena Palestra Itália stadium, according to YAHOO ESPORTE. The São Paulo club, which played top flight football this season but has been regulated to the second division for the '13 season, "has sold six of the 14 sponsorship packages it placed on the market." However, the names of the companies have not been revealed. The stadium, due to host a number of World Cup matches in '14, is currently 45% finished and scheduled to be done "sometime during the second semester of '13." The company in charge of stadium construction, WTorre, "is also negotiating the naming rights to the new arena." It "hopes to obtain R$400M ($193M) for a 20-year contract." WTorre "expects to close the rest of the sponsorship deals by the end of the first semester of the upcoming year" (YAHOO ESPORTE, 12/7).