Sports

Brazil’s football broadcasting giant fades as Super League idea rises

July 7, 2022

The rise of a Brazilian soccer league coincides with a loss of control of Brazil’s main broadcasting powerhouse, TV Globo.

A year ago, news surfaced that almost all Brazilian clubs in the first and second divisions were ready to unite and form a potential breakaway league with an investment of nearly $1 billion from investors. private individuals based in the United States. Such a league was seen as a way to negotiate better and more lucrative media deals, the main source of income for Brazilian clubs.

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From the mid-1980s until a few years ago, TV Globo was often the only sports rights buyer in Brazil for live television and pay-per-view options. Although there was never a monopoly, the main national rights for the top regional championships and the Brasileirão (Brazil’s national football tournament) usually went to TV Globo, as it was by far the leader of the network television and cable audience, reaching an average of 183 million households in Brazil. TV Globo did not respond to Jockrequest for comment for this article.

“The market seems to be ready for the next phase, where multiple broadcasters will share the same event across multiple platforms,” said Ricardo Fort, founder of consulting firm Sport by Fort. Fort is part of the group of sports executives including Scott Guglielmino, Charles Stillitano, Flavio Zveitler and Lawrence Magrath who set out to market a new breakaway league. “It is planned, and I think will be welcome, to have matches on open television, pay-per-view and global streaming platforms like Amazon.”

In 2021, Grupo Globo, the conglomerate that owns TV Globo, generated approximately $2.63 billion (14.17 billion Brazilian reals) in revenue. Although TV Globo’s broadcast budget is not disclosed, it is the largest commercial television network in Latin America and comparable to ABC in size and reach.

After the pandemic hit in 2020, major streaming platforms took an interest in Brazilian football and started bidding for sports rights when major TV deals ended. In the country where Nice game was coined, sport was a key subscription driver for pay-TV channels and is again bet to drive subscriptions in the streaming world.

“There are more operators coming into the market,” said William Mao, senior vice president of Global Media Rights at Octagon. They are pursuing Brazilian football rights, he said, “because they are helping this property unlock many other markets” across the Americas.

Today, regional and national competitions in Brazil are split between several operators. TV Globo has lost the rights to broadcast the country’s top regional tournament, Campeonato Paulista, nicknamed Paulistão. According to Brazilian media, all rights to the event were sold at a price 30% higher than the previous contract, which was exclusive to TV Globo. This season, matches were shown on six different outlets: Record (network TV), TNT Sports (cable TV), HBO Max (streaming) and YouTube.

TV Globo also lost Brazil’s most famous regional tournament, Campeonato Carioca, centered in Rio de Janeiro. According to Brazilian outlet UOL, TV Globo’s deal with the Rio soccer body was around $200 million for 2016-24. One of Brazil’s top clubs, Flamengo, which has a massive global audience, was unhappy with Globo’s offer and started broadcasting its games on YouTube in July 2020. TV Globo canceled the contract for 200 million dollars and has since sued without success. Since 2020, the tournament’s broadcasting agreements with Globo have been rolling out year after year. This season, the tournament is also broadcast on Record, a cable channel.

In terms of international tournaments, Paramount+ recently secured the rights to broadcast the Copa Libertadores, South America’s premier international club competition, in Brazil for the 2023-26 cycle. Currently, the only major tournament that TV Globo will show is the Copa do Brazil, but it is also shown on Amazon Prime. Globo’s move to various streaming services has proven more lucrative for Brazilian clubs than dealing with the country’s premier network.

“Brazilians are ready to follow Brasileirão on open TV, pay-per-view and global platforms like Amazon. The challenge is to develop a distribution strategy,” Fort said. “That’s the league’s job: to work behind the scenes with broadcasters to maximize club revenue while educating fans on where to find and buy their favorite team’s matches.”

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Brazil’s football broadcasting giant fades as Super League idea rises

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