Bookmakers Sponsor All Teams in Second-Tier Brazilian Championship; In Top Division, They Sponsor 80%

A rarely seen peculiarity of the men’s football 2024 Brazilian Championship Series B (Campeonato Brasileiro Série B 2024) is that online bookmakers sponsor all the clubs.

If you’ve ever wondered if there’s a professional club tournament where betting companies fund every side, the answer is yes, and it takes place in Brazil, which is perhaps the world’s most footballing nation. Specifically, every team in an ongoing men’s Series B, the Brazilian Championship’s second tier, has sponsors in the gaming industry.

Guarani FC most recently established such a collaboration, with the club’s newest sponsor, Dafabet. The agreement is good until the end of Paulistão 2025 (the top professional football league in the Brazilian state of São Paulo). With this partnership, the football betting market has become more consolidated, particularly in Series B.

Platforms for betting are widely available in Brazil; 95% of teams have imprinted the logos of these businesses on the front of their jerseys, while 70% of them employ betting platforms as principal patrons, taking up the most significant space on the playing shirts.

Specifications and Anomalies Involving Betting Businesses’ Sponsorship

Certain clubs are distinguished by their unique features in this regard. The front of the shirt features the logos of betting companies for Brusque FC, Ituano FC, Mirassol FC, Grêmio Novorizontino, and Paysandu SC, however none of them are the primary sponsors. For instance, KTO is a partner of Associação Chapecoense de Futebol, but in a more subdued spot—the collarbone—of the uniform.

Guarani, who have lost 10 of 15 of their games and are at the bottom of the standings, are hoping that their recent collaboration with Dafabet will help the team move up.

Sponsors’ Diversification in Series B

Some betting companies are more notable than others when it comes to their Series B investments. Despite just being the master sponsor of Operário Ferroviário EC, Bet7k is the main “player” in the league and is present in five clubs. As a master sponsor, EstrelaBet supports four clubs. While Pixbet, Betnacional, Blaze, and Betvip each support one club, other companies, including BETesporte, concentrate on sponsoring two. Out of these, Blaze patrons the biggest name among the league participants, Santos FC (eight-time champions of Brazil, three-time of Copa Libertadores, and two-time of Intercontinental Cup), who was one of the clubs relegated from last season’s top division and is the biggest favorite by the best bookmakers in Brazil to return to it at the end of 2024 Series B.

This widespread availability of betting sites is indicative of a developing trend in Brazilian football, as betting sites are becoming essential to clubs’ ability to remain financially stable. After all, numbers say that in May 2024, 80% of the top division sides, Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, had sponsors from the betting industry.

It’s more than obvious that Brazilian clubs are heavily dependent on gambling firms’ financial support. No wonder that in 2023, after learning about a possible ban on betting advertising in football, 33 teams sent a letter to the Senate asking to abandon this measure.