About Brasileirão
Brasileirão History, Format, Organization, Media Coverage
The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A, commonly known as the Brasileirão, is Brazil’s top-tier professional football league. Established in 1971, the Brasileirão has been a breeding ground for some of the greatest football talents in history, including Pelé, Zico, Romário, Ronaldo, Kaka and more recently, Neymar and Vinícius Júnior.
The league consists of 20 clubs and each season, they compete in a round-robin format, playing each other twice, home and away. Furthermore, the Brazilian top flight operates on a promotion and relegation system, with the four bottom-placed teams each season getting demoted to Serie B while the top performers earn the right to play in prestigious international competitions, namely the Copa Libertadores.
The Brasileirão has produced some iconic clubs, such as Flamengo, São Paulo FC, Santos, and Palmeiras, with the latter two dominating the competition shortly after its inception. Initially, due to historical circumstances and the vast geographical expanse of Brazil, the primary competitions were state championships held in each Brazilian state.
The 1937 Torneios dos Campeões marked the first national tournament with fully professional football clubs in Brazil, featuring champions from each state. In August 2023, the Brazilian Football Confederation (CBF) officially recognized this tournament as a Brazilian championship, making Atlético Mineiro the inaugural national champions of Brazil. In 1959, the need for a Brazilian representative in the Copa Libertadores gave rise to the Taça Brasil, a nationwide competition. It was not until 1971 that the first competition explicitly referred to as a national championship took place, won by Atlético Mineiro, before officially being named "Campeonato Brasileiro" in 1989.
While the Brazilian top flight is recognized as one of the best leagues in world football, it has struggled for exposure in the USA and UK markets compared to the European leagues. Nonetheless, the Campeonato Brasileiro Série A has made it onto some of the largest broadcasters in the world, including BT Sports, DAZN, and Premier Sports in the UK; and beIN Sports in the USA.
2021 saw a host of prominent broadcasters enter the scene, namely CBS Sports, who began live-streaming Brasileiro games for fans in the USA on Paramount+ after acquiring the 2021-2023 rights cycle. TelevisaUnivision also secured broadcasting rights for 2021 to 2023 and joined Fanatiz USA (2021 to 2024) in offering Spanish-language coverage.
