JAPANESE TYRE manufacturer Bridgestone has become the new title sponsor of the Copa Libertadores, South America’s most prestigious club football competition, in a five-year deal beginning in 2013.
The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL) has confirmed that Bridgestone will pay double what previous the title sponsor, Spanish bank Santander, paid for the rights between 2008 and 2012.
Toyota was the competition’s first title sponsor, naming the tournament between 1997 and 2007.
Frontloaded has learnt that the deal for Bridgestone to assume the role of title sponsor was brokered by Tenfield, a Uruguayan sports rights agency owned by the country’s richest man, Paco Casal.
The deal consolidates Bridgestone’s presence in the South American football market after the company was announced as the title sponsor for the CONMEBOL international tournament, the Copa Sudamericana, in a one-year deal in 2011 – a deal also brokered by Tenfield and subsequently renewed for the 2012 iteration.
Tenfield is well-renowned in the South American sports market and operates a monopoly over football broadcast rights in Uruguay.
It is thought, as reported by some South American sports marketers, that Santander’s withdrawal as title sponsor of the Libertadores is due to the bank following a strategy of reducing its sponsorship spend as a result of the persisting economic turmoil in its home market of Spain.