Football is the most popular sport in the world, with an estimated audience of between 3 and 4 billion people. In addition, it is also the most practiced sport in most countries. In Brazil alone, football has 30 million practitioners and moves approximately 16 billion reais every year.
All these numbers demonstrate the grandeur of this sport, adored by men and women of all ages. It is no wonder that football is also the sport with the highest number of bettors. In addition to the popularity of the sport itself, it is relatively easy to bet on football matches, and the wide dissemination of information about players and championships greatly facilitates the situation for those who want to bet on this modality.
But after all, what is the relationship between sports betting and football? Can betting, in some way, help football to grow and conquer an even larger audience? Next, we will analyze how football – as well as other sports – can benefit from online betting.
The popularity of sports betting sites
Sports betting is nothing new. There are those who attribute its beginnings to the Chinese, who held sporting events around 1000 BC On the other hand, there are those who say that the Greeks were the first gamblers, and later the Romans.
The practice continued to exist over time. However, even today there are countries where it is not legalized. Until a while ago, this made the situation very difficult for gamblers in these countries. While online bookmakers did not yet exist, the solution for these people was to resort to clandestine betting, surrounded by the most diverse risks.
With the emergence and popularization of sports betting sites , access to this modality has become much more comfortable and secure. If before gamblers were, almost entirely, people who were fanatical about certain sports, nowadays many “lay people” are becoming interested in the topic, looking for more information about sports and following the championships as a way to get money from sports. this.
That is: even those who were not necessarily fans of a particular sport have now sought knowledge on the subject, in order to increase their betting odds. With this, football also ends up benefiting, as it manages to attract even more fans and fans.
The mutual benefits of sponsorship deals
Sponsorship is perhaps the main way clubs benefit from sports betting. Many online gaming houses sponsor football leagues and teams as a way to reach their target audience and make their name popular with fans. Therefore, when a betting site has its name associated with a popular football league or team, its brand recognition skyrockets.
For bookmakers, sponsoring football teams and championships has proven to be an effective marketing strategy. It's no wonder that, as this trend gains strength, more and more sites sign partnership agreements with the country's top teams.
Likewise, this relationship is great for clubs. Bookmakers even pay a few million for advertising in the main space on the team's shirt. So clubs can leverage this money to improve their facilities and infrastructure. In 2021, 85% of Brazilian first division clubs were sponsored by the betting sector, which also has its place in advertisements both on open television and on pay channels.
How the situation could be even better for Brazilian teams
Sports betting was legalized in Brazil in 2018, through law nº 13,756/18. It provides, in its article 30, the different destinations for the values obtained with the collection. This includes the allocation to clubs that meet certain requirements – such as ceding the rights to use their names, brands and emblems for the dissemination of this type of bets.
This law is awaiting regulation, and therefore is not yet applied in the country. When it is finally regulated, teams will benefit from the aforementioned legal provision, as currently all revenue goes abroad, where operators operating in the country are based.
