Specialists explain the bureaucracy behind athletes’ image rights and what are the advantages and disadvantages of a brand allying with them
With less than two months to go until the 2022 Qatar World Cup, advertising campaigns turn their eyes to the stars of the biggest football event in the world: football players. Despite the proximity of the date, it is not today that companies use the artifice of fans’ passion during their plays, actions and activations.
According to Amir Somoggi, specialist in sports marketing and managing partner of Sports Value, the relationship of adoration between the population and the player is older than imagined and this is one of the main reasons why choosing an athlete in a campaign is right.
“Since ancient Greece, people have had a certain passion for idols. So, the main reason that brands are interested in the player, in the idol, is this human issue and the vision of a hero that people have of him”, explained Somoggi.
With social networks, it has become more and more common to see soccer athletes doing campaigns, including some that have nothing to do with their profession and involving other sports, such as the case of the Brazilian national team striker, Neymar Jr., who advertisement for PokerStar.
But at the end of the day, how do advertising contracts work?
Football players, like any professional, have an employment contract with the club they represent. Within this contract, there are many points that range from the salary received, the time of contracting to the athlete’s image rights, which relate to matters such as appearance during broadcast games and the use of the image in the club’s collective campaigns. But, contrary to what one might imagine, the club is not entitled to the image of the player in environments outside the four lines.
According to Jos Sarkis Arakelian, professor of marketing strategy at FAAP, a brand can sponsor both the club and the player because they are distinct brands.
“We need to get used to the idea that a player is a brand. He is still a PJ, a representation, a symbol. On the other hand, the market is quite mature in this regard, it doesn’t have the slightest problem”, explained the academic.
Fernando Trein, professor of sports marketing at ESPM Porto Alegre, points out, however, that even though the club has no influence on advertising contracts, there are some legal issues that must be taken into account and that transparency between athlete and club is essential.
“There are some contractual aspects that must be respected and common sense must always prevail. There are some legal requirements, such as, for example, you cannot associate any sport or athlete with the tobacco industry. This is an imposition that exists in Brazil. So, it is always good to ask and reconciling interests so that there is no type of questioning, any unwanted situation. The club does not have a direct influence on negotiations, but I think that these conversations between the athlete and the institution have to be transparent”.
Conflicts between sponsors
Like the players, clubs also have their sponsorship teams that, from time to time, may not be the same as their athletes. The situation is more common than it seems, and Arakelian recalled one of the most famous cases in the world of football, which involves two of the biggest names in the sport today, Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi.
“CR7 was sponsored by Nike and played for a decade at Real Madrid, which was sponsored by Adidas. Messi, on the contrary. He is sponsored by Adidas and played for years at Barcelona, which is sponsored by Nike. While they are on the field, in training , giving an interview for the club, they use the brands that sponsor the team. Now, in their leisure time, they use the brands that are sponsored. They are contracts and different situations”, recalled the FAAP professor.
This case was also remembered by Somoggi, and both experts emphasized that the sponsorship conflict does not interfere with anything for either side. Despite this, there are some cases that became known for the conflict.
In 2021, Neymar Jr. hid the Nike symbol, sponsor of the Brazilian team, in one of his photos published on Instagram. At the time, the current Paris Saint-Germain player was accused by an employee of the company of having tried to force her to perform oral sex on him in 2016. The sports equipment manufacturer, which sponsored the athlete at the time, broke the contract after he have refused to cooperate with the internal investigations. The photo has been deleted from social media.
What about paying for these advertisements?
As stated before, the club and the athlete have different CNPJs, but this does not necessarily mean that the earnings from advertising are exclusively the player. According to Trein, from ESPM in Porto Alegre, it all depends on the situation.
“In European teams, when a player gets his image right for an eyewear company, for example, as his image is linked to the club, he [o time] also receives a value from this type of advertising. In Brazil, this is still something little used, even when the athlete negotiates his image rights with the club. Suddenly, some image right conveyed to the club makes the institution entitled to some kind of revenue. There is no standard, it depends on the case”, explained the academic.
Arakelian reinforced Trein’s speech, emphasizing that, in fact, there is nothing preventing the club from reaching an agreement regarding the remuneration of these advertisements.
“In common, but within this contract, there may be a bonus for individual campaigns. When a brand wants a certain player, it will make a direct contract with that player, but nothing prevents there being some agreement that has a clause saying if the player participates from such a campaign, the club receives X value”, exemplified the FAAP professor.
A bnus is a groom
Campaigns that feature football players as stars tend to be well accepted by the public. This is what leads companies to increasingly invest in this type of strategy.
Another reason pointed out by the professor at Faap is what atheists represent for a large part of the population. “The players represent dreams for a certain part of the population, mainly in Brazil, where we have a very close contact with the players. They represent the ideal for many people, they carry attributes, they carry values”, he explains.
With social networks, in addition to football players, athletes ended up winning another title: that of digital influencer. This movement, according to experts, is more common among the younger population, made up of millennials and generation Z.
According to them, a brand associating itself with a sport image can be very beneficial because of the message that the practice brings, such as determination, focus and overcoming.
“Using sport is always something beneficial for everything it represents. In this aspect, you have a good advantage. Players, especially those who are more prominent and are more accepted, end up being more valued and conveying a positive image,” he says. Training, from ESPM Porto Alegre.
For Somoggi, another advantage is that the company is not held hostage by all the athletes at that club. “For example, you have Cristiano Ronaldo or Messi, so you don’t need to take the average players on the team for your campaign. You take only the ones that have the most impact”, pointed out Amir.
But, just like any human being, football players are also prone to mistakes and, for experts, this is the point of attention that brands need to have. After all, any involvement in controversies can interfere with the image of that brand, product or service.
“The athlete’s life ends up impacting brands. We had several examples of this in the world, such as Tiger Woods, who lost all sponsorships when it was revealed that he had extramarital affairs. Today, Woods is back on the market and has a level of revenue very high, so there is this possibility of returning, but the truth is that when you invest in athletes, you are ‘hostage’ to their attitudes, both positive and negative”, added Somoggi.
Another case remembered by Fernando Trein belonged to Germany player Mesut zil, who lost sponsorships because of his relationship with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, president of Turkey.
“This is a care that the player has to take because, as much as he has rights like any other citizen to think and do something, he has to be careful when exposing some things and this is a risk that companies run. If a player gets involved in a problem, this will have a greater repercussion and the brand will worry about positioning itself, sometimes breaking the sponsorship contract. The player needs to understand this limit”, concluded Trein.
