Botafogo, the Brazilian soccer heavyweights, have brought in online sports betting brand VBET as their new main shirt sponsor, through a lucrative three-year deal.

The front-of-shirt tie-up represents the largest commercial agreement in the 130-year history of the club.

The deal stretches across both the men’s and women's teams and reportedly becomes the fifth most lucrative main sponsorship amongst teams in the top-flight Brazilian Serie A - behind the agreements of Flamengo, Corinthians, Palmeiras, and Vasco da Gama. Some Brazilian media has reported that the deal is worth as much as BRL$55 million annually ($8.87 million).

Botafogo is currently an attractive proposition for brands to partner with, having won the pan-continental South American Copa Libertadores late last year, and also winning the 2024 Brazilian Serie A domestic title.

The club has been majority-owned since early 2022 by Eagle Football, the holding company of colorful US businessman John Textor.

The team’s previous front-of-shirt commercial partner was Cyprus-based international gambling firm Parimatch, which came on board with the club in early 2023 in a two-season deal. That deal was reported by GlobalData Sport as having an annual value of BRL30 million annually.

VBET, meanwhile, is also a partner of French soccer club Monaco, through 2024-25, and was the title sponsor of the top-tier Ukrainian Premier League earlier this decade.

Sports betting has proved incredibly popular in Brazil over the last few years, with the practice having first been legalized in 2018.

The local sports betting industry is estimated by Brazil’s economy ministry to have handled $21 billion in transactions in 2023.

Such is the practice's popularity, and the increasing value of the sports betting industry in the country, that the Brazilian government is now having to put in place various regulations on it.