Whenever there is big event that goes on, the rules change slightly and the question is always will they go back to where they were? or is the change permanent? For some, it is elections, but live sporting events have staying power and FIFA is changing viewership.

A number of years ago, a World Cup event meant more viewers for Cable TV and sale of more TVs. Then the internet came along with smartphones and today people use their phones and maybe a big screen watch party.

In an article by Brendan O’Boyle of Reuters, in a country that loves football or soccer, Brazil, watching the games meant watching TV, this year only half the games are broadcast the usual way.

You Tube-based CazeTV showed 104 matches for free, turning Latin America’s largest media market into a closely watched laboratory for live sports in the streaming era.

Early ratings such the market is being split. The streaming shift has given younger fans more ways to watch, while making some games easier to miss for casual viewers accustomed to finding the World Cup of free to air TV.

CazeTV says it peaked at 21.3 million simultaneous connected devices. Its owner took the same concept to Portugal where LiveModeTV has reached 90% of Portguese households.

LiveMode’s co-founder Sergio Lopes, said Brazil’s sports culture, high digital engagement and influential content creators created the correct environment.

FIFA, the governing body, said it signed the agreement with CazeTV to connect to younger audiences through digital community driven coverage.

Danni Moore, a broadcasting analyst at UK-based Ampere Analysis, found that 53% of sporting fans aged 18-34 prefer streaming, compared to 45% of fans overall.

Jose Carlos Marques, one of Brazil’s leading scholars on soccer media, Globo’s failure to buy all the World Cup rights in 2020 was a strategic mistake that allowed CazeTV backers to seize an opportunity in a country where online engagement is exceptionally high.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, for years cable companies would have expected and forecast sales to be higher for sporting events, now the equation has changed. The monopoly has been broken and every new smartphone continues that change. It will be a big hurdle for CazeTV to turn the audience members to regular members that can be monetarized but change has happened. What other changes happened over the big event?

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.