The podcast last week received Rob Pilgrim, head of sports and prime time of YouTube Emea. For 45 minutes, the executive focused the conversation in the lack of understanding of how the platform is repositioning the value of premium sport. Not to sabotage traditional broadcasters, but in order to eliminate friction between them.
To reinforce the partnership tone, Pilgrim mentioned the 2022 World Cup case broadcast by Cazétv, citing a “permission” of Globo.
“It was not cannibalism. It didn’t take it off and gave it to the other. But the millions and millions of spectators that Cazétv brought increased the overall audience. It was additive.”
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At the FIFA Club World Cup, the logic is repeated, says Pilgrim: The role of YouTube would be to build access ramps for new viewers who might not come by traditional means.
Two weeks after the tournament began, however, the collaborative spirit idealized by Pilgrim collapsed. Globo and Cazétv have caught a public exchange of barbs, with audience and measurement methods in the center of discord.
On Tuesday, Globo that 104 million Brazilians watched broadcasts on open TV and SporTV. The statement said the reach was five times larger than that of “concurrent streaming.”
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Days earlier, Cazétv had sent one to the advertising market by criticizing Kantar Ibope’s measurement model, supposedly ignoring a relevant part of the audience on mobile devices.
Since then, the channel has release its own viewing data based on connected devices, bringing one: “Without sampling or estimate.”
In April, because the visualization, the central metric of Youtube, does not follow the complexity of current consumption. Recently, Insider Jo Redfern warned that views, still sold as a successful parameter, are becoming useless on social platforms.
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“If you own IP and still support it, it’s time to rethink,” he said.
Cazétv has reached 17.4 million unique devices in the first week of World Cup. The number exceeds the universe of seven million households with pay -TV in Brazil.
The confrontation of narratives between the two stations symbolizes the shock between the old and the new television. And this division begins to reverberate in the public.
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The polarization between fans and the cost of informality
As with the 2022 World Cup, Olympics and Euro 2024, the World Cup has been boosting the Cazétv audience. And the channel sells well the narrative of free content and stratospheric numbers to monopolize social conversations.
In this scenario, there is a visible cleavage among the fans: those who prefer the old -fashioned game and those who idolize the scraped informality of Casimiro and company. This aesthetics sustained by memes and jokes, in turn, serves to raise fans and to arm the detractors.
During Red Bull Salzburg and Al-Hilal, seeing comments about the conflict between Iran and Israel climbing on Chat, one of Cazétv analysts fired: “We don’t buy war rights in the Middle East.” The cut, and the station was tried in the Internet Court.
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In fact, the clash has been announced since the beginning of the Brasileirão, when the rivalry between clubs to groups and the stations of the new division of Brazilian football. And the fan accompanied, taking sides.
In this scenario of extreme polarization and fragmentation, a window arises for more sophisticated strategies. Redfern argues that the future of sports consumption undergoes a hyperpersonalized distribution on multiple platforms and with very low access friction.
“It’s not about fragmenting rights and hiding them behind multiple paywalls.”
Streaming 3.0: When creators saw rights owners
John Kosner, a 20 -year -old veteran at ESPN and today sports media consultant, sees the combination of scale and personalization the essence of what has called streaming 3.0: phase when the barrier to acquire sports rights collapses.
In the new age, just have three assets: relevant brand, engaged digital audience and appetite for sport.
The Korner classification of the moments of sports distribution exposes the current rupture:
- Open TV as an audience centralizer
- Streaming 1.0: “TV Everywhere”, with platforms linked to operators
- Streaming 2.0: Giants like Amazon and Netflix hunting exclusives
- Streaming 3.0: Radical democratization, allowing content creators to become players
Cazétv is the perfect prototype of non -traditional media. And in this scenario, as Doug Shapiro suggests, there is one between the creative and corporate media – with consumer time as a finite resource.
Over the past four years, the media of creators has responded for almost half of the growth of the global media market and entertainment. In 2023, it generated $ 250 billion. By 2030, it should exceed US $ 600 billion – 20% of the total industry revenue.
In this scenario where creators are the media itself, buy rights and define a new format for consuming sports, a question raised by expert Carlo de Marchis resonates here: Is it possible to deliver different experiences to the casual viewer and the hardcore fan through different channels?
Nsports wants to occupy the halfway
Two days before the Club World Cup, NSports brought together partners in São Paulo to present its new phase. With investment from Tellescom and Holding Hello Sports, the Galvão Bueno channel as a partner and face of the reinvention.
Now it wants to position itself as the first multigenerational sports channel in the country.
The icon of sports journalism, which reinvents itself between the band and the Welched Garden of the Prime Video, embodies the attempt to prove that sports streaming can dialogue with different generations without giving up credibility or entertainment.
Under the logic that rights are half, not end, the new NSports bets on the combination of live broadcasts, on -demand programs and documentary series.
In April, Hello there were already Series B to the Unipedidos. Since the beginning of the tournament, the two games per round have accumulated more than 9.4 million views.
The grid also wins its own programs like Negueritm e Go, Gabi!commanded by influencers Neguerê and Gabi Martins. And soon the house’s first documentary debuts: Thiago Silva’s trajectory.
This strategy is the hybrid model proposed by Wim Ponnet: Part Distribution, part strategic partnerships, with full control over data, engagement and monetization.
For the expert, the future requires more than selling signal: It is necessary to create its own platforms that combine social, trade and intelligence, and capture the full cycle of the fan attention.
“The hybrid model is the only way to transform passive transmissions into interactive and profitable experiences. Those who are limited to being a feed supplier will lose control over the relationship with the public and leave money on the table,” said Ponnet.
The dilemma between Paywall and Audience
For the first time since 2021, streaming overcame open TV and cable in the US, according to Nielsen. While free platforms like Tubi and Roku gain strength among the elders, pay TV has been shrinking: it has lost 39% of the audience since 2020.
In the Age of Streaming 3.0, Kosner says that sports prices will continue to rise, especially for the main properties, as competition intensifies and companies seek to leverage sports content as a retention tool for their main businesses.
A, in turn, forces the sport to rethink its role within a fragmented media ecosystem, dominated by algorithmic logic, short -term financial decisions and cascade paywalls.
The Club World Cup is a good example of the risk of this model. Dazn paid $ 1 billion. It owes between US $ 370 and 380 million with sublicement and advertising, according to Frank Dunne of SportBusiness. Still, half billion evaporates.
As two weeks ago here, Dazn still operates with only 20 million paid subscribers, faces an intensive capital scenario and competition with consolidated giants.
The future of sports in streaming will depend on resolving three contradictions:
- How to monetize large audiences without pushing them out with Paywalls
- How to rescue accidental discovery in algorithmic feeds
- How to combine location with global scale
Carlo de Marchis summarizes the dilemma: If those who lead the techs, wait for ecosystem plugged packages. If they are the owners of rights, the product can gain creativity. If it is the market, anything can happen.
