ESPN Brasil

What is ESPN Brasil?

ESPN Brasil is ESPN's Brazilian operation, part of the Walt Disney Company: a pay-television channel business and the Portuguese-language edition of the ESPN site at espn.com.br. The site identifies itself on the page as the "Edição Brasil" and offers a switch to ESPN's editions for the United States in English and Spanish, the global edition, England, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico, Australia, the Philippines and Africa.^[1]

The name has a documented history. Máquina do Esporte reported on 17 January 2022 that Disney was retiring the ESPN Brasil brand as part of a standardisation across Latin America and the United States following the Fox merger: the channel called ESPN Brasil became ESPN, the channel called ESPN became ESPN 2, ESPN 2 became ESPN 3 and Fox Sports became ESPN 4. Until that date it had been the only ESPN channel anywhere carrying a localised name.^[2]

The operation is Brazil-facing and its site keeps its own registrable domain, espn.com.br, distinct from ESPN's global address.^[1]

What does ESPN Brasil cover?

Football leads. The Brazilian edition's front page carries the Copa Libertadores, the Copa Sul-Americana, the Brasileirão and Série B, the Premier League, LaLiga and the Italian league, with club, competition, results, calendar and standings pages and a Bola de Prata section.^[1]

The wider menu lists the 2026 World Cup, the NFL, the NBA, ESPN KnockOut, tennis and Formula 1, and then a "Mais Esportes" list running to the Olympic Games, boxing, MotoGP, surfing, futsal, basketball, Major League Baseball, athletics, golf, cycling, the NHL, motorsport, poker, swimming, judo, gaming, rugby, volleyball and the X Games, together with a programme schedule and podcasts.^[1]

Carriage sits alongside the reporting. Under the CONMEBOL cycle reported in December 2025, Disney renewed Copa Libertadores rights for its ESPN channels and Disney+ through 2030, and holds Copa Sul-Americana rights on pay television and Disney+; in the same cycle Globo took the free-to-air Libertadores package for 2027 to 2030 and Paramount+ was renewed with live rights to the final.^[3]

What are ESPN Brasil's reach and standing?

Two measures were retrievable. In comScore's sports category for January 2025 to June 2026, as reported by Propmark in August 2026, ESPN ranked second among Brazilian sports properties, behind Globo Esportes and ahead of UOL Esporte, Better Collective and Lance! Sites.^[5]

The second measure is what Disney kept. Terra reported on 3 December 2024 that Disney would close most of its pay-television channels in Brazil on 28 February 2025 — Star Channel, Cinecanal, FX, Nat Geo, Disney Channel and Baby TV — and keep ESPN as the only one in operation, attributing the closures to low ratings and contrasting them with ESPN's football audiences. The report described Disney as the first large media company in Brazil to withdraw from pay television at that scale while keeping a streaming presence.^[4] That is a reported characterisation rather than an audited figure, and the ratings comparison behind it was not published.

Since when?

1995 for the channel name. Máquina do Esporte's January 2022 report on the rebrand states that the channel had carried the ESPN Brasil name since 1995 and was the only ESPN channel in the world to use a localised one; the name was retired that month, and the channel continued as ESPN.^[2]

Three later dates matter more than the launch. On 28 February 2025 Disney closed its other Brazilian pay-television channels and retained ESPN.^[4] In December 2025 the CONMEBOL cycle was settled, with Disney renewed on pay television and Disney+ through 2030.^[3] And the Brazilian edition of the site continues to publish under espn.com.br, separate from ESPN's other national editions.^[1]

The renaming in January 2022 moved every channel in the Brazilian line-up at once — ESPN Brasil to ESPN, ESPN to ESPN 2, ESPN 2 to ESPN 3 and Fox Sports to ESPN 4, with ESPN Extra and Fox Sports 2 unchanged — so channel numbers cited from before that date do not map onto the ones used afterwards.^[2] A founding date for the Brazilian company itself, as distinct from the channel name, could not be confirmed from a primary source.

Why does ESPN Brasil matter in Brazil's sport?

By comScore's sports measure for January 2025 to June 2026 it was the second-largest sports property in the country, and the highest-placed one outside Grupo Globo's ownership.^[5] In a market where ge, SporTV and TV Globo share one owner, it is a second rights-holding broadcaster with its own newsroom.^[3]

Its carriage covers the part of South American club football a Globo-only account would miss: the Copa Libertadores on pay television and Disney+ through 2030, and the Copa Sul-Americana alongside it.^[3] The competitions are run by CONMEBOL.

The corporate history is worth stating precisely, because it is often reported loosely. ESPN Brasil is not a closed outlet: the brand name was retired in January 2022 and the channel, the newsroom and espn.com.br continued under the ESPN name.^[2] [1] Three years later, when Disney closed six of its Brazilian pay-television channels, ESPN was the one it kept.^[4] See broadcast rights.