Athlete who will be presented to Real Madrid this Saturday (27) has brands such as Natura, New Balance and Disney+
Endrick Felipe Moreira de Sousa became a star before he came of age. Born in 2006 in the Taguatinga region of the Federal District and raised in Valparaíso de Goiás (GO), the athlete’s life was marked more by “no’s” than by “yes’s”.
Considered the “jewel of Brazilian football”, he started playing football at the age of four and was considered by São Paulo Futebol Clube, but due to negotiation problems, the proposal was discarded, taking him to Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras, where he shone in the youth categories and reached the club’s main team at the age of 16 as one of the main names in the squad in 2022.
Six months later, Endrick was sold to Real Madrid for a sum estimated to be in the millions of euros, becoming one of the biggest sporting transactions in history.
Due to article 19 of FIFA’s Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTJ), national football was still able to count on the presence of the athlete until he turned 18 — celebrated last Sunday (21). Now, Endrick is officially a player for the Spanish team and will be officially presented at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium this Saturday (27).
With 22 goals for Palmeiras’ professional team and three for the Brazilian national team, anyone who thinks that the young athlete’s “magic” extends only to the four lines of the field is mistaken. Little by little, the advertising market also saw Endrick’s commercial potential and began inviting him to star in campaigns and products.
He currently has contracts with brands such as Odontocompany, New Balance, Hypera, Disney+ and Natura, and, according to Thiago Freitas, COO of Roc Nation Sports in Brazil, the entertainment company that manages Endrick’s career, news is expected in four other segments.
Nice to meet you, Endrick
According to Freitas, work on the athlete’s image in this market began in 2022, the year in which many world clubs considered signing him. “At that time, when it was decided that he would leave Brazil as soon as the legislation allowed, we already knew that it made sense to research and prospect brands and people,” he said.
It was in this year, in fact, that Endrick was announced as an ambassador for Odontocompany, still at the age of 15, at an event held at the Football Museum. At the time, this was the athlete’s first contract outside the field.
Now, with the new contract and new country of residence, Freitas says that some things should change in the negotiations. “The value of the contracts already established has increased a lot, as will the cost for those who want to sign new ones for two reasons. The first is because he is part of the squad of the most successful and popular club in the world, which makes him interesting for several global brands that would not consider associating themselves with athletes who play in Brazil and second because, outside of Brazil, the resistance or even rejection that many fans of other Brazilian clubs had for him has disappeared”, he added.
Even so, Fabio Wolff, managing partner of Wolff Sports & Marketing, the agency responsible for managing the player’s advertising contracts since 2022, pointed out that the trend is for more and more contracts to be signed with global companies.
“International contracts are broader in the sense that the communication strategy is to reach several markets. His presence at Real Madrid helps a lot in this sense,” he highlighted.
Wolff also explained that the athlete’s work with brands is developed based on the “premises stipulated in the strategic image plan”, which include long-term contracts, a limited number of brands and partnerships with storytelling, aiming at organic relationships with exchanges of attributes.
Taking a generalist view of the advertising market, the COO of Roc Nation completed the line of thought by highlighting the difficulties of working on a footballer’s image in this environment and the importance of concise work, both on and off the field, to establish oneself.
“Footballers who are attractive enough to advertise products that are not directly related to the game of football are a minority. Today, for example, in Brazil, there are not even five athletes who justify investing in a national advertising campaign that lasts more than thirty days. That said, it is reasonable to say that success on the field is a necessary condition, but far from being sufficient to become a reference capable of selling products or building consumer loyalty to a brand,” he explained.
He also went on to reveal how this work is done with the athlete, specifically. “We continually try to show Endrick that what people think and say about him and, consequently, about how much his work is worth may depend more on what he does and doesn’t do off the field than on it,” he concluded.
Humility and hope
For Amir Somoggi, sports marketing specialist and managing partner at Sports Value, there are some points that make Endrick an interesting face for the market.
“I find the issue of Endrick very interesting because he is a player who, like so many, was born into a humble family and ended up exploding at a very young age in a big team like Palmeiras. This means that he already comes to the market somewhat prepared, as in that interview in Spanish that he gave, in the contracts with the brands that he is involved in, in the interviews, in the text in Player’s Tribune… He has an educational background and seems to me to be a boy who is ready to shine as a great star at Real Madrid”, explained Somoggi.
With the transaction and the high expectations of Brazilians to see Endrick and Vinicius Jr. playing together for Real Madrid, Freitas believes that the athlete’s presence on one of the sport’s main stages will be transformed into a message that combines talent, dedication, humility and hope.
