Brazil won't be watching the World Cup the way it used to. CazéTV — the YouTube-based streaming platform built around influencer Casimiro Miguel — has secured the rights to all 104 games of the 2026 tournament. Globo, the network that has effectively owned Brazilian football broadcasting for decades, gets 55.
That's a seismic shift in a country of 215 million people who treat football like a national religion.
From Twitch experiment to full tournament rights
This didn't come out of nowhere. FIFA quietly ran a pilot at the 2022 Qatar World Cup, giving CazéTV rights to 22 matches. The format — looser commentary, content creators on the mic, genuine crowd energy instead of corporate polish — landed well with younger audiences. So FIFA doubled down. Then tripled down. Now CazéTV is the only outlet, digital or traditional, showing the complete tournament in Brazil.
The 48-team tournament begins Thursday and runs through July 19, co-hosted by the United States, Mexico and Canada. There are more games than ever before, and FIFA clearly wants more eyes on all of them — not just the Brazil fixtures and knockouts that traditionally dominate ratings.
Streaming markets where consumption is already digital-first are being targeted differently this time too. YouTube and TikTok will carry live match segments in select markets — a first for the tournament.
The Ronaldo connection
Last month, LiveMode — the Brazilian company behind CazéTV — announced it had launched an international broadcast arm. One of its shareholders: Cristiano Ronaldo. A man who has spent his entire career understanding personal brand as well as anyone in sport now has a direct stake in how football is consumed by the next generation of fans.
That's not a vanity investment. LiveMode's model — influencer-led, creator-commentated, engagement-optimised — is exactly the direction FIFA is pushing the sport's broadcast future. Ronaldo aligning with it tells you something about where the money thinks this is going.
For betting markets, the broader implication is audience growth. More eyeballs, more casual fans, more people checking odds on their phones mid-stream. FIFA's "game-changing" language is usually PR noise, but the CazéTV numbers from 2022 genuinely backed it up — and the expanded deal reflects that.
Globo still gets 55 games. But in 2026, CazéTV is the main event in Brazil.
