Despite the increase in the number of games shown for free on open TV and on the internet, fully following the Brazilian Championship became more expensive in 2025. With the fragmentation of broadcasting rights between different platforms, fans who wanted to watch all 380 games in the competition had to spend around 40% more than in 2024, even in a scenario with more free options, such as Globo, Record and CazéTV.
Won by Flamengo, this year’s Nacional consolidated the dispersion of the sports media market in Brazil, expanding casual access to the championship, but making consumption more expensive for the most loyal public, who follow round by round and club by club.
In practice, the bill looked like this: in 2024, fans could watch all the games with an annual subscription to Premiere (R$358) and access to Athletico matches as home team on CazéTV for R$15.92 per year, for a total of R$374.72. In 2025, to follow all the matches, it became necessary to add Premiere and Prime Video, which increased the annual expense to R$ 525.60 — R$ 151 more, an increase of close to 40% at the lowest possible cost.
On the other hand, there have never been so many matches available at no cost to the public. In each round, 3 of the 10 matches were available free of charge: two on TV Globo (divided by the broadcaster’s square system) and one shared by TV Record and CazéTV (YouTube).
“This current model may be a great solution for the long term, as it seems to serve different segments of fans. For casual and medium-frequency fans, free games pay for themselves through advertising, while those more loyal to the teams and the competition pay directly to have access to everything”, defended Alexandre Vasconcellos, regional manager of Flashscore, a sports statistics platform.
The current scenario began to take shape in 2021, with the approval of the so-called Host Law, which guarantees clubs the possibility of individually negotiating the rights to the games in which they act as hosts.
Although it broke with the collective sales model, in practice the clubs from Series A and B ended up forming two blocs, Libra and Liga Forte União, to jointly negotiate the rights of their members, with the aim of maximizing gains.
Libra was the first to sell rights to the block. In 2024, it signed an exclusive deal with Grupo Globo for broadcasts on open TV (Globo), closed TV (SporTV) and the pay-per-view system (Premiere) for R$1.1 billion.
The LFU understood that dividing its rights into packages could be more profitable. In the end, by closing contracts with Record, CazéTV, Amazon and Globo itself, it obtained an average value per club similar to that of Libra, with R$1.7 billion in total.
“The more players start to compete for the same rights, the appreciation is a natural effect of the law of supply and demand. Each holder needs to monetize this investment, whether through B2B sponsorships or through direct charging to the fan, and this increase ends up appearing at the end”, said Ivan Martinho, professor of sports marketing at ESPM.
The dispersion of broadcasting rights that will be observed in the Brazilian Championship is already a reality in state championships. Paulista, for example, has seven viewing options: Record, TNT, CazéTV, Max, UOL Play, Nosso Futebol and Zapping TV.
The model is also common in the main leagues in Europe. In addition to the various international agreements, the English, Spanish, Italian, French and German championships are divided between several companies within their national territories.
In the United Kingdom, for example, broadcasts are shared between Sky Sports, TNT Sports and Prime Video. In Spain, Movistar+ and Dazn share the matches. In Germany, Sky Deutschland and Dazn hold the broadcasting rights. The Italian Championship is shown nationally on Dazn and Sky Italiana. French, in turn, is broadcast on Prime Video and Canal+.
In Brazil, Grupo Globo has monopolized broadcasts since 1992, with the exception of moments when it shared matches with Record and Band, but always sublicensing its rights.
In 2026, the World Cup, jointly hosted by the United States, Canada and Mexico, will also have a fragmented transmission model in Brazil.
The edition, which marks the debut of the competition’s new format — with 104 games and 48 teams — will be shown in the country by Globo, SBT, CazéTV and NSports.
