Brazil senate committee approves major restrictions on advertising
The Sports Commission in the senate has approved a project that prohibits the display of betting site brands in stadiums, uniforms, and any communication related to sporting events. It also bans advertising campaigns featuring digital influencers and public figures with significant appeal to young audiences.
As reported by the Senado Radio Service the proposal also restricts the timing for the display of betting advertisements. On television and social media, these ads can only be aired between 7:30 PM and midnight, as well as 15 minutes before and after live sports broadcasts.
Senator Styvenson Valentim, the author of the project, initially wanted to prohibit all types of advertising but believes the approved text is a “middle ground” to allow football championships to adjust.
Senator Styvenson Valentim said: “We are giving a chance to adjust and an alert to the population that has already seen this as harmful. And it does no good for football teams to issue statements trying to influence fans against the senators in a vote. It seems to have backfired on what they imagined. They are against the clubs. I know this is not ideal, but it’s what we can have right now.”
Currently, operators can advertise freely in stadiums and arenas, even if they are not the official sponsors of clubs or competitions. In a statement, over 50 teams warned of a ‘financial collapse of the entire sports ecosystem,’ citing an annual loss of R$ 1.6 billion. However, for the project’s rapporteur, Senator Carlos Portinho the clubs are losing money due to poor management. He stated that the trend is for betting money to decrease drastically, even without the approval of the project.
In his report Senator Carlos Portinho, allowed the advertisements to be aired from 10 PM to 6 AM on radio and television, while maintaining the prohibition for the internet and other platforms “It’s not because of this project that sports will lose funding. They would have naturally lost betting revenue anyway. Because all this volume of money, advertising, sponsorships, even shows, started to decrease when taxes began to be charged this year. There’s no doubt that, even without this project, this market adjustment would have happened. Money was overflowing,” he said.
The proposal also requires that betting advertisements include warnings about the risks of gambling addiction and the financial impacts associated with it. The president of the Sports Commission, Senator Leila Barros, will ask for the proposal to be voted on by the Plenary without going through the Committee on Economic Affairs.
