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IN CONVERSATION
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THE CHANNEL
and has over 5m
subscribers and we
are the fourth
channel in terms of
reach in the
country. Our
competitors are
Globoʹs SporTV, and then Fox and
ESPN, the two international brands.
Bandsports is today in 100% of the
pay‐TV operations in the country,
but we are not in 100% of the
subscriber households. Thatʹs a
matter of packaging ‐ from one
month to another operators
package their channels in different
ways. Sometimes we are in,
sometimes we are out. It depends
on what operators want to do at a
specific time.
What is your programming concept?
I believe we are the most diverse
channel in the country because we
have a little bit of all of the different
sports. Most of our competitors are
focused on soccer, thatʹs the most
popular sport, not only in Brazil
but right across the world. Our
slogan ʹA channel for all sportsʹ
makes it clear that we want to air as
much as possible of different sports,
and we are looking for relevant
events associated with them.
For example, at the end of last
year we closed a deal with Roland
Garros for the full exclusive media
rights for Brazil ‐ after 19 years of
partnership with ESPN Roland
Garros gave the product to us in a
five‐year deal and this June we
broadcast the first edition. We are
also exclusive rights holders for the
WTA Tour – we air about 37 WTA
events in Brazil which makes us
their biggest partner in the country.
And for the last five years now we
have had the exclusive rights for
the HSBC Sevens World Series of
Rugby ‐ we just renewed for two
editions. Rugby is getting bigger in
Brazil, there is a lot of interest in
that sport.
There are also other properties,
such as Liga ACB, the Spanish
basketball league – we hold the
rights exclusively for that. The
Spanish are an important partner
and extremely competent in
promoting the event. I wish we had
more partners like them. We have a
lot of volleyball too, Italian league
volleyball for men and women, and
the menʹs and womenʹs Champions
League of volleyball as well. As you
can see, we have the big sports and
some of the best events in the world
for those sports.
Beyond that, itʹs just a matter of
adding new properties and adding
new talent, and adding new value
to these properties. We are now
investing in some partnerships with
Brazilian events, such as motocross,
and with some other smaller
properties where we want to be the
actual promoters with the organisers.
By partnering with them we
aggregate value to the property so
we can get recognition in terms of
audience and in terms of marketing.
As a group we are the promoter
and host broadcaster for the
IndyCar Series race that takes place
in the streets of Sao Paulo every
year – itʹs an awesome spectacle.
This is one of the biggest properties
that we have in terms of exclusive
ownership and it has brought us a
lot of recognition in the market.
How do you add value?
The key is differentiation – we
believe that is the best option to
attract audience and commercial
revenue and also attract interest to
our channel. Going back to Roland
Garros, during the 19 years that
ESPN had a deal with Roland
Garros they never took a team to
the event. This year, in our first
year, we took a crew of more than
15 people to Paris, we had
commentators and reporters in
different parts of Paris and of
course inside the Roland Garros
stadium.
I believe that when you are
B
ALLSPORTS
AMANFOR
Headquartered in Sao Paulo, Bandsports is part of the largest multimedia group in
Brazil – Grupo Bandeirantes de Comunicação. The group is a player in pay-TV,
terrestrial TV, radio networks, out of home media at the beaches and in buses, has a
big internet portal and owns newspapers. Since it launched in 2002 Bandsports has
broadcast to subscribers in Brazil. Evandro Figueira was part of the team which has
shaped the channel's output right from the start – so which position does it occupy in
the Brazilian media landscape right now?
THE CHANNEL
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ISSUE 2 2013
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17
You
have to
make sure
that the
user will
come
back to
your app
and use
your app
“
