EXCLUSIVE: Brazilian organisation B4 renews all its sponsorships

Brazilian esports organisation B4 Esports has renewed its partnership deals with all of its current sponsors, including internet infrastructure company Eletronet, the bank Digio, and Outback Steakhouse

All contracts have been extended for another 12 months and upscaled both in value and deliverables, B4 told Esports Insider, with ‘special projects’ to be held every three months. Financial details were not disclosed.

Eletronet, Digio and Outback will be featured across all of B4’s lineups. The only exception is recently-signed sponsor Betnacional, who’s agreement only covers its CS:GO team due to restrictions on betting sponsors in VALORANT and Free Fire.

Founded as a guild in 2018 by the medic Patrik Michel, and professionalised in 2019 by its current CEO Antônio Cardoso, B4 Esports is a Brazilian organisation that has over 2.4m followers on Instagram and a strong competitive history on Free Fire. 

B4 shifted its commercial approach in 2021 when it brought in investment from venture capital firm Seastorm and signed former Omelete Company Head of Sales Eduardo Abrão.

Esports Insider visited B4’s office in São Paulo, located in a building alongside other Seastorm assets, and spoke with Abrão and Cardoso about their plans and ambitions for the organisation.

After the entrance of Abrão, who also became a partner of B4, the organisation established a strategy of drawing a storyline for promoting each sponsor in the most organic way possible. Such an approach was instrumental for renewing all the sponsorship contracts, plus bringing in Betnacional, the executives said.

A salient example they gave was the documentary B4 Angels, produced in partnership with Digio, which told the story of the organisation’s female VALORANT team while featuring the bank as part of the storytelling. Episodes of the documentary were even posted on the high-profile sponsor’s YouTube channel.

According to Cardoso, B4’s identity is built on competition. The organisation heavily relies on content highlighting its competitive vein — multiple trophies are proudly on display in its office — thanks to its history of building strong teams with new players and shaping young talents to reach their maximum performance.

This tradition of shaping talent for the competitive scene is so strong that selling players actually became a source of income for B4, a rarity in the esports industry. “It is not our style to bring seasoned players, we prefer to work with young talents hungry to prove themselves,” said Cardoso. Despite that strategy, B4 has yet to experience an off-the-charts drop in performance.

Abrão additionally revealed to Esports Insider that it’s close to landing a blockchain partnership, a move that would see it join a string of other Brazilian teams recently signing blockchain partners. 

“We currently have offers from three different companies and we are studying to choose the project that makes more sense for us. It won’t necessarily be the one that pays more,” he said. 

Sales for B4 Esports are exclusively managed by the esports and gaming business startup G4B, founded by Marcela Miranda, Cynthya Rodrigues, and Abrão himself. It is also an asset of Seastorm. G4B also deals with commercial assets for Ubisoft’s esports products in Brazil, such as the local Rainbow Six Siege league.