Benfica in the market to sell Estádio da Luz naming rights
Benfica is looking for partners to acquire the naming rights for Estádio da Luz and the training centre in Seixal. The club has delegated the task to the agency WME Sports.
Benfica will put up for sale the naming rights of the Estádio da Luz in Lisbon and the club’s training centre in Seixal. The search for sponsorship will be the responsibility of WME Sports, the sports branch of the WME agency, owned by the US group Endeavor.
This “exclusive commercial partnership” will allow WME Sports to “represent two of the most prestigious assets in European football,” namely the Benfica stadium, which has a capacity of 65,000 people, as well as the Benfica Training Academy, also known as Benfica Campus, the club’s training centre in Seixal.
“WME Sports works closely with Endeavor’s network of businesses, including IMG, a global leader in sports, events, fashion and media, and Endeavor Analytics, which provides actionable insights, market and media intelligence to top brands, leagues and teams. Endeavor also represents several sports brands, athletes, actors, actresses and celebrities in the US,” reads a joint statement to which ECO had access.
Quoted in a statement, Karen Brodkin, co-head of WMESports and executive vice president of strategy and content development at Endeavor, says that the Estádio da Luz and the Benfica academy “provide not only an opportunity for brands to connect with millions of football fans around the world, but also with the six million tourists who visit Portugal’s vibrant capital every year.”
She also stresses that the WME Group will use its “international experience in sports real estate development” to highlight both Benfica properties, highlighting that, to do so, “a collaborative, data-driven approach will be used to find the right strategic partners.”
Domingos Soares de Oliveira, Benfica’s CEO, also added in the statement that “it will be an added value to work with the prestigious agency WME Sports, which will provide an unrivalled network of global sponsors.”
This is not the first time Benfica has sought partners to acquire the naming rights of the Estádio da Luz. In January 2019, the Portuguese press reported that Benfica was asking for 100 million euros for the naming rights of the stadium.
