LiveMode and the New Global Audience for Live Sports
General Atlantic-backed LiveMode is capturing a young and growing audience with its creator-led streaming platform.
The 2026 FIFA World Cup semifinal between France and Spain drew 23.9 million devices simultaneously to LiveMode’s Brazilian creator-led sports platform, CazéTV, making it the largest live stream in YouTube history.1 The broadcast targeted fans beyond the traditional television audience, adding a new layer of scale to Brazil’s World Cup viewership. By the end of the tournament, CazéTV held 29 of the 30 largest live streams ever recorded on YouTube, including the entire top 28.
Live sports remain one of the largest draws in media, with a mass audience that is growing across platforms. Major technology companies – Amazon with the National Basketball Association and UEFA Champions League matches, Alphabet with NFL Sunday Ticket, and Apple with Major League Baseball and Formula 1 – have entered sports rights and streaming distribution in recent years, underscoring the growing commercial value of live sports content. Alongside this expansion, a new and fast-growing audience is emerging on open, creator-led platforms such as CazéTV that appeal to younger viewers that traditional distribution models have struggled to reach.
CazéTV total views progression, 2022–2026 (annual views, YouTube)
Reaching a New Generation of Fans
YouTube highlights, TikTok videos, and other creator-led content are often the entry point into live sports media for younger fans. 2 Nearly half of Gen Z sports fans say this type of content has sparked their interest in a new sport or athlete. These digitally native audiences gravitate toward platforms that mirror how they discover and share content elsewhere. For rights holders, this represents a substantial incremental audience: fans who are highly engaged, digitally fluent, and largely additive to existing distribution.
Platforms that meet these audiences where they are stand to capture the opportunities created by this shift. In 2023, we partnered with LiveMode, the company behind CazéTV, to support the expansion of its creator-led distribution model in its home market of Brazil, with an eye toward international growth.
As a digital distribution partner, LiveMode earns revenue through advertising and sponsorship of its own creator-led channels, led by CazéTV, bringing rights holders an audience that traditional television does not often reach on its own.
The 2026 World Cup made the case emphatically. With 16 of the 28 CazéTV record-breaking livestreams simulcast on Brazilian free-to-air television, the majority of its YouTube milestones were set while games were also available on traditional platforms.
Roughly three quarters of CazéTV’s World Cup audience was under 45 years old, providing a differentiated and direct connection to a new generation of fans and viewers.3
CazéTV was the only platform in Brazil to stream all 104 World Cup matches – and posted the largest digital audience ever assembled for a sporting event on a streaming platform4:
The Power of Engagement
Depth of connection sets the digital audience apart. In Cape Verde’s opening match, its 40-year-old goalkeeper Josimar José Évora Dias, known by his nickname Vozinha, produced seven saves in a draw against Spain and was named player of the match. Live on air, CazéTV’s hosts launched a campaign asking their community to follow him. After starting the tournament with fewer than 60,000 followers, Vozinha soon became the most-followed goalkeeper on Instagram in the world with nearly 30 million followers.5
CazéTV’s own engagement data tells the same story. The platform’s live chat averaged 10.4 messages per minute across the full tournament and peaked at 378 messages per minute, with 96.7% of messages carrying emotional sentiment rather than neutral commentary.6 This sense of community fostered by creator-led platforms offers opportunities that extend beyond the reach of traditional distribution models.
Proving the Model Beyond Brazil
The 2026 World Cup was the first full-scale test of LiveMode’s model outside its home market and proved that its playbook travels. Ahead of the tournament, Cristiano Ronaldo, the most-followed athlete in the world, acquired a significant stake in LiveModeTV, the company’s international arm, becoming a shareholder and strategic partner in its global expansion.7 In Ronaldo’s home market of Portugal, LiveModeTV aired 34 matches that reached more than 5 million unique devices in a country of 10.5 million people, passed 1 million YouTube subscribers within weeks of launch, and produced the 25 largest live streams in YouTube’s history there. 70% of its audience came from the 18–44 age group.8
As distribution for live sports diversifies across more platforms, LiveMode has built a model that meets audiences where they are while helping rights holders capture more value. What the World Cup demonstrated – in Brazil and now in Portugal – is that this model doesn’t simply redistribute the existing audience, but expands it.
– Luiz Ribeiro, Managing Director, Co-Head of General Atlantic’s Brazil Office
A Generational Shift Creates Opportunity
In market after market, a new cohort of fans is discovering live sports on digital-native platforms. The 2026 World Cup and CazéTV showed what capturing that audience at scale looks like, first in Brazil, and now beyond. As brands reallocate spend toward audiences that are measurable, interactive, and increasingly viewing content on smart televisions, platforms that aggregate this generation of viewers are better positioned for a digital future.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
We believe the sports industry is in a very pivotal moment where the equipment distribution model is broken, and our mission is really to transform the distribution of sports into digital.
Luiz Ribeiro:
LiveMold is a company that sits in the intersection of digital transformation, media, and sports. It is basically transforming the sports arena, and it has three business units today. The agency business, the broadcasting business represented by Caze TV, and also DIP ownership business.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
Our addressable market is huge. We’re basically solving a major secular problem for the big organizations on sports. The three pieces, they connect each other, creating a very powerful flywheel where the agency can provide connections to the rights holders and Caze TV, but also the Caze TV provides opportunities for the investment side.
Mark Traiman:
Caze TV became the main sports channel in Brazil. It broadcasted the World Cup in 2022. It broadcasted the Olympics in Paris, the Euro Cup last year, the winter Olympics this year.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
Caze TV has evolved from being just a partnership with a creator to the largest distributor and partner for FIFA for the World Cup. So we are pretty much bringing the creator economy, combining this to live sports and delivering this through YouTube. And that’s very powerful because we are reaching a segment that is very hard to target today for brands.
Mark Traiman:
60% of Live Mode’s audience is between 18 and 34 years old, and it’s very hard for traditional media channels to be able to target this audience.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
When GA came on board in 2023, we are looking not only for capital, but for the strategic guidance to grow.
Luiz Ribeiro:
The whole thesis is around how can live mode capture this great opportunity through this decentralization. The other thesis is connected to only the IP and making sure that it controls the content and it grows and it uses the whole ecosystem to be able to extract more value out of this content.
Mark Traiman:
This has been one of the tools that many platforms such as Netflix, Apple TV, Amazon Prime have been using to attract clients. So the willingness to pay for very good and high quality IP has been increasing over time.
Luiz Ribeiro:
I believe right now the area where we’ve added most value has been on the strategic side. So trying to guide them towards where they should focus as a company, where the value is in the chain, and trying to help them to have the best talent possible to go and execute those things. So since we invested in Live Mode, the company has been growing four to five times more in top line. EBITDA has been growing 3X more.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
On GA team in Brazil, in Latin America, and actually globally help us scale and grow the business.
Mark Traiman:
We believe LiveMode ecosystem is very powerful. And for that, having a powerful distribution channel is key. And I think leveraged by the fact that IP is becoming very, very valuable, being able to capitalize on that and move from Brazil, which is a big country, a big market, but still nascent to becoming global, I think is a strategy for LiveMode to navigate this scenario.
Luiz Ribeiro:
I’m most excited about the ability to use the ecosystem that the company has today and getting this playbook that is working super well in Brazil to other countries and making Live Mode this global powerhouse in sports.
Leonardo Lenz Cesar:
General Atlantic is helping us not only with the vision, but also on the execution. So I think we are really prepared to take a global role into the sports industry coming from Brazil.
References
1 LiveMode internal data. All CazéTV and LiveModeTV Portugal figures refer to the 2026 FIFA World Cup period (June 11 – July 19, 2026) unless otherwise noted. Follower and subscriber growth measured June 10 – July 20, 2026. YouTube subscriber counts shown as publicly displayed (rounded) by YouTube for large channels.. YouTube subscriber counts shown as publicly displayed (rounded) by YouTube for large channels.
2 “Gen Z Sports Fandom and the Mega-Moment”, Acceleration Community of Companies (ACC), July 2026.
3 LiveMode internal data, 2026 FIFA World Cup period (June 11 – July 19, 2026).
4 LiveMode internal data, 2026 FIFA World Cup period (June 11 – July 19, 2026).
5 ESPN, “Cape Verde GK Vozinha stopped World Cup favorites Spain … then gained 14M followers,” June 2026; Forbes, “How This World Cup Goalkeeper Built a 15 Million Follower Personal Brand Overnight,” June 22, 2026; Yahoo Sports / Football Muse, “Vozinha becomes Instagram’s top-followed keeper after Cape Verde’s fearless World Cup run,” July 5, 2026.
6 LiveMode internal data, 2026 FIFA World Cup period (June 11 – July 19, 2026).
7 Bloomberg, “Ronaldo Expands Budding Empire With Stake in Sports Streamer,” May 14, 2026; Sportcal (GlobalData), “Ronaldo acquires ‘significant stake’ in LiveModeTV broadcast arm,” May 2026; Inside World Football, “Ronaldo buys into streaming business LiveModeTV,” May 18, 2026.
8 LiveMode internal data, 2026 FIFA World Cup period (June 11 – July 19, 2026).
The views expressed in this piece are solely those of the author and are provided for informational purposes only. They should not be construed as investment, financial, legal, or other professional advice. This is an opinion article and does not constitute a recommendation or endorsement of any particular strategy, security, or investment. Readers should conduct their own research and consult with qualified professionals before making any financial decisions. GA does not accept or assume responsibility to you or any other person in connection with the provision of the Information. You acknowledge that you have made, and will continue to make, your own investment decisions without reliance on any representation or warranty of, or advice from, GA or its representatives.
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