Juliana Mello

Juliana Mello


The Brazil Business

Updated

Sports Business in Brazil

Juliana Mello

Juliana Mello


The Brazil Business

Updated

Brazil has a strong Sports Industry, with annual growth going around 7.4%. In this article you will get information on the most lucrative and promissing activities regarding sports business in the country.

History of sports in Brazil

Historically, sports in Brazil are usually divided into the following phases: the first, until 1908, the year in which appears the first book published about sports in the country, containing information about athletics, tennis, swimming, hockey, soccer and water polo.

The second phase was the implementation of sports in the country, with the founding of clubs and federations, culminating with the creation of the Brazilian Sports Confederation in 1914. That was the phase of the creation National Council of Sports, which established bases for the sports organization in the country.

During the phase of implementation of sports in Brazil popularization, it started the popularization of the activity in which official support becomes effective and the sport becomes supervised by the Ministry of Education by 1937.Today, sports are supervised by the Ministry of Sports, which was created in 1995.

More recently, Brazilian sports has suffered the impacts caused by emergence of sports marketing and television segmented, with the growing interest of enterprises in this activity. Actually, we can say that the involvement of companies has revolutionized the sport in the Brazil, transforming it into a business of great potential.

In fact, the trend in sports in Brazil, as well as throughout the world, is very developed in this regard. Besides the large projected growth in the entertainment and leisure industry, the TVs and audiences in Brazil are hungry for sports programming. There’s also the increasing of sales of sports goods and the sponsorships to sports provided by large companies.

Sports Industry in Brazil

The Sports Industry in Brazil has been growing consistently at an average rate of 7.4% per year. Basically, we can separate the Sports Industry in two types of business operations:

  • The exhibition of sports, which includes sports events, sports marketing, TV shows, sports media etc. The practice of sports itself, which employs several people, from athletes, sports teachers, coaches, sports clubs officers and staff, doctors, physiologists, referees and others.

  • The sale of sports goods and sports services, from sports clothing to energetic drinks destined to the professional and amateur athletes. Also includes the teaching personal training of amateurs in gyms and fitness centers.

The Sports Industry in Brazil has been growing consistently at an average rate of 7.4% per year. Currently, nearly 70% of everything that is produced by the Sports Industry in the country comes from the sports retails and only 30% comes from services and indirect revenue from sports. This means that among the USD 50 billion handled by the Sports Industry in Brazil, almost UDS 35 billion comes from retail.

Further, we will discuss each of these variations of sports business in Brazil in separate topics.

The Exhibition of Sports

In Brazil, the sales of tickets in stadiums represent only about 1% of the Sports Industry total revenue. However, depending on the impact that the World Cup 2014 and the Olympic Games 2016 will generate in the market, representativeness can even reach 50% of the Sports Industry revenue.

The Brazilians, particularly, show preference for ball sports with movement and collective participation. The sports with the largest audiences gather all these elements. Among these sports, soccer concentrates almost all the attention of the population. The volleyball including the beach, had expanded its audience from the results obtained in recent events.

A 2011 survey conducted by Delloitte concluded that the four favorite sports among Brazilians are soccer (72%), volleyball (46%), swimming (24%) and tennis (19%). The same study asked the Brazilians which sports they used to practice. The more voted were soccer (32%), running (17%), weight training (9%) and tennis (8%).

The exhibition of professional sports generates revenue from TV rights, advertising in broadcasting, sponsorship, licensing, spending on stadiums, arenas, racetracks and gyms and a large revenue for teams, federations and sports clubs. In addition, we consider the massive generation of jobs in the segment.

Sales and Services in Sports

As discussed above the sports retail and services earn the largest part of the income generated by the Sports Industry in Brazil. The retailers play a fundamental role in the economic development of the Sports Industry in any country, especially in countries with large numbers of consumers, such as Brazil.

The Brazilian population tends to practice sports, not only because of the whole healthy lifestyle that lot of Brazilians follow, but also because of the weather conditions, warm most of the year.

The sales of sports goods encompass the entire consumption with sports, in which the fitness fashion market occupies a great asset with increasing profits year after year. Gym clothing, hiking shoes and jogging, swimming suits and kimonos for fighters are items that line the charts. With the development of e-commerce in Brazil the sales tend to grow even bigger.