Itaquerão receives an offer of R$ 300 million.

247 – The future Corinthians stadium and likely venue for the opening match of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil is in negotiations for the exploitation of its “naming rights”. According to a report published in Tuesday's edition of the newspaper O Estado de S.Paulo, the Itaquerão stadium has already received an initial offer of R$ 300 million from a private bank. With this money, the club intends to pay off the R$ 400 million credit line from BNDES that will be used for the construction.

However, two details are preventing the signing of the contract in the short term: the agreement's duration – Corinthians wants 15 years and the company, 20 – and the current stage of construction in the eastern zone of São Paulo. Corinthians' marketing director, Luis Paulo Rosenberg, told the newspaper that the project is likely to appreciate in value once it's finished. "For now, people see that the construction is progressing rapidly, but they still don't recognize the stadium. When everything is going up, looking like a stadium, people will understand that it's a reality, that there's no going back."

Amir Somoggi, a consultant at BDO/RCS specializing in market and brand analysis, says that the longer Corinthians' new stadium remains without an official name, the greater the chance that the public will name it themselves. “The place is already called Fielzão, Itaquerão. The longer it takes to finalize the contract, the harder it will be to make the new name stick. It's no use thinking only about advertising and brand exposure. You have to think about building relationships with the market. In other words, more important than having the name on the stadium is using the infrastructure, such as VIP boxes and restaurants, to attract customers,” he stated.