Today the World Surf League (WSL) announced that, beginning in 2022, Globo will be the official media partner in Brazil. The new three-year media deal will be effective from 2022 through 2024, providing multi-platform coverage that will be amplified on Globo TV, Globoplay, ge.com, and Canal OFF. This new media deal will give the passionate Brazilian audience the opportunity to watch the world’s best surfers in action, including all of the Brazilian athletes that are on the forefront of competitive surfing.
In addition to full coverage of the Championship Tour (CT), the agreement also includes linear broadcast rights to the Challenger Series (CS), the path to the elite tour, as well as Longboard and Big Wave events. Globo will also have distribution access to original content series and documentaries produced by the WSL. As the home of professional surfing, the WSL will continue to broadcast all WSL competitions on its own digital platforms, its free app as well as its YouTube channel.
“For the WSL, being part of Globo’s multi-platform coverage, which speaks to millions of people every day, is something that will increase the sport’s current visibility, both in the availability of surfing content and the opportunity to become even more familiar with all the athletes who are part of the current generation of champions, as well as the up-and-coming generations, which are also exciting and very promising,” said Ivan Martinho, General Manager of WSL Latin America.
“The market has shown that surfing is already amongst the most loved sports in the country and has the highest number of active surfers in Brazil. The fact that it is now among the select group of sports that Globo chooses as part of its platform is a source of great pride for the WSL. I am sure that the increase in visibility to surfing will be very important in the construction of today’s surfing idols while providing a springboard for the idols of tomorrow,” concluded Martinho.
While providing greater visibility of professional surfing to a larger audience on free-to-air, premium, internet and streaming platforms, the Globo Group will use all of its experience by supplying broad coverage across all its platforms to bring a unique perspective and outreach to the sport of surfing and to the Brazilian athletes, who are a vital part of the WSL surfing elite.
“We are very happy to have WSL back in the Globo portfolio. We have successful partnerships in mainstream sports – such as soccer, volleyball and basketball – but surfing could not be left out because it is linked to our strategic goals. It is a democratic sport, which has Brazilian athletes as some of the main idols in the world and has been attracting even more fans in the country after recent achievements like Italo Ferreira’s gold medal in surfing’s debut at the Tokyo Olympic Games, Gabriel Medina’s third World Title and Tatiana Weston-Webb’s runner-up finish at the WSL Finals. Our multi-platform coverage will bring more visibility to the sport, offering relevant content to thousands of surfing fans across the country, in addition to attracting new consumers to the sport”, emphasized Eduardo Gabbay, Director of Globo Sports Channels.
The event in Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro, which returns to the CT calendar in 2022, will have guaranteed special coverage on all channels. The ge.com platform will cover the competition in real time, with videos of the biggest maneuvers and highlight moments, while Canal OFF will continue to exhibit the day-to-day lives of some of Brazil’s biggest surfing idols, such as Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira, Tatiana Weston-Webb and Filipe Toledo.
Established in 1976, the World Surf League (WSL) is the home of the world’s best surfing.
A global sports, media and entertainment company, the WSL oversees international tours and competitions, a studios division creating over 500+ hours of live and on-demand content, and via affiliate WaveCo, the home of the world’s largest high performance, human-made wave. Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, the WSL has regional offices in North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific, and EMEA.
The WSL annually crowns the men’s and women’s surfing World Champions. The global Tours and Competition division oversees and operates more than 180 global contests each year across the Championship Tour, the development tiers, including the Challenger, Qualifying and Junior Series, as well as longboard and big wave properties.
Launched in 2019, WSL Studios is an independent producer of unscripted television projects, including documentaries and series, which provide unprecedented access to athletes, events, and locations around the world. WSL events and content are distributed on linear television in over 743M+ homes worldwide and across digital and social media platforms around the world, including WorldSurfLeague.comWaveCo includes the Surf Ranch Lemoore facility and the utilizing and licensing of the Kelly Slater Wave System.
The WSL is dedicated to changing the world through the inspirational power of surfing by creating authentic events, experiences, and storytelling to inspire a growing, global community to live with purpose, originality, and stoke.
For more information, please visit WorldSurfLeague.com
