In Brazilian football in recent years, few stories are as surprising as that of Casimiro Migueleven if Cazé’s performance, as he is known, is not on the country’s pitches with a ball at his foot. A journalist by training, the Rio native became, in a few years, an intern responsible for one of the largest YouTube channels in Brazil, CazéTV, and one of the central figures in the broadcast of tournaments such as the men’s football World Cup.
Vasco da Gama fan with roots directly linked to Portugal (he is the son of Portuguese people who emigrated to Brazil)Cazé recently took an even bigger step in what can now be called an empire: last year, he became a partner in LiveMode, which a few months later announced an arm in Portugal, with LiveMode.pt, a platform that will broadcast games from the 2026 World Cup on YouTube, including matches for the Portuguese national team.
Just like the successful model of CazéTV – which, at least in Brazil, revolutionized the way sports broadcasts are carried out – the project in Portugal develops along a similar logic, with strong interaction with young audiences and the presence of names in humor and the digital universe. More than a new platform, it is a clear attempt to replicate a model that has already changed football consumption in Brazil. But after all, how did Casimiro go from being an intern to being the main face of broadcasting a World Cup so quickly?
To tell Cazé’s journey, we need to go back to pandemic times. After starting at Esporte Interativo (which later became TNT Sports), one of the first sports television channels in Brazil to invest in the internet as an informative vehicle, and also working at broadcaster SBT, Casimiro built much of his work on digital platforms from an early age, mainly on Twitch. It was there, especially in 2020, that it began to gain scale.
In your live broadcasts (lives), far beyond football, he commented on everything that went viral on the internet: he reacted to videos of the mansions of the richest people in the world, showed how the kitchen of the most fashionable hamburger restaurant in the United States worked, among other curiosities from A to Z. Deep down, it wasn’t exactly the content that mattered – it was the way he talked about it.
At a time when the world was closed at home and the internet and video began to occupy an even greater space in everyday life, Cazé went viral. Through his daily broadcasts on Twitch, where his humble, sincere and humorous profile made the public identify with him. The Rio native “exploded” in 2021 and became one of the main faces on the Brazilian internet.
With growth came recognition: that year he won awards such as iBest for ‘Twitcher of the Year’, the eSports Brasil Award for ‘Personality of the Year’ and was chosen by GQ Brasil as ‘Man of the Year’ in the Digital Content category.
It was at that moment that LiveMode entered history once and for all. The company – responsible for negotiating and acquiring rights to major competitions – started to manage Casimiro, and from this partnership CazéTV was born in 2022. The first big test came with the World Cup in Qatar, and it became clear that there was something different in the air.
Today, CazéTV has more than 24 million subscribers and has become a reference in the market, not only for its size, but for its style. A lighter model, less rigid and with internet language, which brought the transmission closer to those on the other side of the screen.
The impact was immediate. Even industry giants had to adapt: Globo launched GE TV on YouTube with a more relaxed format, ESPN Brasil reinforced its focus on streamingand other projects, such as NSports ea SportyNetfollowed the same path. What started as an alternative became a trend.
Behind the scenes, growth has also changed scale. In 2025, LiveMode began to own 100% of CazéTV, and Casimiro no longer had a direct stake in the channel to become a partner in the group’s international arm, LiveMode Cayman. In practice, it exchanged part of a specific business for a broader position within the company, starting to participate in the global broadcasting rights strategy, including expansion into new markets, such as Portugal.
The fact is that CazéTV has become a case study for those who want to replicate the successful model around the world and has also become the subject of academic research that analyzes its impact, especially among younger people. At a time when Brazilian football no longer produces as many global idols as in other generations, identification with Cazé, for many, is close to that which was previously reserved for stars on the field.
Even though there is not yet a “Casimiro” in Portugal, the model is already starting to show signs that it can gain space. And the trend is clear as water: starting with the 2026 World Cup, the transition from television to streaming should become increasingly visible – and, this time, with a Portuguese accent.
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