By Brazil Stock Guide – CazéTV, the digital sports channel fronted by Brazilian streamer Casimiro Miguel, has turned the 2026 World Cup into a milestone for Brazil’s sports media industry, showing that free streaming can now compete with broadcast television for the country’s most valuable live sports property.
In Brazil’s opening match against Morocco, the channel reached a peak of 12.7 million concurrent viewers on YouTube, breaking previous platform records and cementing CazéTV as a national-scale operation. The channel also surpassed 30 million subscribers during the tournament.
That audience is still below Globo’s reach. Globo, Brazil’s dominant broadcast network for decades, said it reached 49.9 million people for Brazil vs. Morocco across TV Globo, sportv and ge TV. SBT, another major Brazilian free-to-air network that returned to World Cup coverage in this edition, had an estimated 15.7 million viewers. But CazéTV’s 12.7 million concurrent viewers showed that the historical dominance of broadcast television has been shaken. It has not disappeared — but, much like Brazil’s national soccer team, it no longer looks invincible.
For years, sports streaming ran into three main barriers: access, connection quality and signal delay. By 2026, those obstacles had weakened. Fiber broadband has expanded, smart TVs have become more common, YouTube has become a daily habit and signal delay — highlighted this year by TV channels and online videos warning fans that they might see Brazil goals a few seconds after their neighbors — did not stop millions of people from watching on another screen.
CazéTV became a phenomenon because streaming finally had the infrastructure, convenience and scale to challenge live soccer on broadcast TV. The channel combines premium sports rights, free distribution, creator-driven language, a digital community and a large commercial operation. By carrying all 104 matches of the biggest World Cup in history, it also offers near-continuous programming for soccer obsessives, creating habit and daily presence throughout the tournament.
That constant flow is part of the appeal. For younger audiences and viewers used to consuming sports through social media, messaging apps, short videos and live comments, CazéTV feels less like a traditional broadcaster and more like a digital gathering place.
On screen, the product looks informal, close to the fan and adapted to the language of social media. Behind the scenes, it is a sophisticated business operation run by LiveMode.
LiveMode is the business engine behind the phenomenon. The company works in the production, broadcast and monetization of sports events, while also managing and commercializing media and sponsorship rights for competitions. Through CazéTV, it also produces and distributes audiovisual content.
From Homegrown YouTube to Billion-Real Business
Casimiro Miguel, a Rio de Janeiro streamer in his 30s, went from gaming broadcasts, reaction videos and sports commentary on social media to becoming the most visible face of a new phase of live sports in Brazil. But CazéTV’s current scale depends on a much larger engine.
LiveMode helped scale the operation, including negotiations with FIFA over broadcast rights, content production and advertising sales. CazéTV is also distributed on platforms such as Prime Video, Disney+, Samsung TV Plus and Sky+, in addition to YouTube.
Capital helps explain the scale. LiveMode’s largest shareholder is General Atlantic, through funds linked to General Atlantic Partners Bermuda IV.
The advertising market has already taken notice. The partnership between CazéTV and YouTube sold roughly R$ 2 billion in sponsorship packages for the 2026 World Cup, with master sponsorship quotas priced at R$ 185 million. Brands associated with the project include Coca-Cola, Itaú, Mercado Livre, iFood, GM and Ambev.
Those figures show that CazéTV is now competing for the kind of large-event advertising budgets historically concentrated in broadcast TV. For advertisers, the appeal is the combination of mass reach and community engagement.
The broadcasts also show how that community works. During the draw between favorite Spain and underdog Cape Verde, CazéTV mobilized its audience around Vozinha, the Cape Verde goalkeeper who became a social-media character during the match. He went from roughly 50,000 Instagram followers to more than 8 million in less than 24 hours. The episode illustrated the channel’s ability to turn a single match into conversation, memes, a spontaneous campaign and a viral character.
In traditional television, brands buy commercial breaks, sponsorship quotas, pitch-side exposure and institutional association. On CazéTV, they buy presence inside an environment where the audience comments, shares, clips, reacts and keeps consuming the content after the final whistle. The commercial value lies less in the signal itself and more in the social circulation around the broadcast.
The Incumbent Response — and a Global Push
Globo, which controlled the World Cup television experience in Brazil for decades, has been responding to this new environment. In 2025, the group launched ge TV, a free, multiplatform digital sports channel with live broadcasts, well-known talent and rights to major competitions. The move was widely seen in the market as a direct response to the rise of CazéTV and other digital-native formats.
But Globo’s strategy is broader than creating a sports channel on YouTube. The group is trying to rebuild in digital the leadership position it consolidated in broadcast television. To do that, it is using an ecosystem that includes G1, ge, Gshow, Globoplay, connected TV, a unified login, proprietary data and targeted advertising.
Globo connects more than 134 million Brazilian users through a single login, according to institutional information cited in market documents. It is also investing in first-party data infrastructure that consolidates information about user behavior and journeys. The strategy allows Globo to sell targeted advertising inside its own environment, reducing dependence on platforms such as Google and other big tech companies.
Globoplay is another major pillar of that response. The platform turned 10 in 2025 with about 30 million monthly users. Globo has also launched Globopop to compete for the attention of users accustomed to infinite-scroll video consumption.
The battle, therefore, is not simply CazéTV versus Globo. It is a competition between distribution models. On one side is a platform-native operation built around YouTube, the creator economy, community and open circulation. On the other is a media conglomerate trying to bring audiences into a proprietary ecosystem built on data, streaming, editorial brands and integrated advertising.
LiveMode, meanwhile, is trying to export the model beyond Brazil. The company opened an operation in Portugal, created LiveModeTV and began using the Portuguese market as its first international laboratory. Cristiano Ronaldo’s entry as a partner in the local operation gives the project a figure with global reach and deep cultural connection to Portuguese audiences.
The logic is similar to the one used in Brazil: combine sports rights, digital distribution, locally legitimate talent and advertising monetization. Portugal offers language proximity, soccer culture and a bridge into Europe. The company is already looking at markets such as Spain, Italy, France and Germany, according to comments from its executives.
So far, CazéTV has shown that millions of Brazilians are willing to watch the world’s biggest sports event on another screen, in another environment and, if necessary, a few seconds later.
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