Referí

What is Referí?

Referí is the sports desk of the Montevideo daily El Observador. It is published on a path of the newspaper's own domain, at elobservador.com.uy/referi, rather than on a separate address, and it describes itself there as “Seguí el mundo deportivo con Referí en El Observador. Noticias, análisis y cobertura de los principales eventos deportivos.”^[1]

Neither a founding date for the desk nor an ownership statement for the newspaper could be retrieved from a source read for this page, and none is asserted here. What can be shown is the output, which is dated and attributable.

What does Referí cover?

The section's own index lists Fútbol, Mundial 2026, Resultados Deportivos, Fútbol Internacional, Copa Libertadores, Juegos Olímpicos, Rugby, Básquetbol, Tenis, Running, Polideportivo and Motor.^[1]

Two strands of that coverage are measurable rather than descriptive. The first is audience reporting. On 11 November 2025 the paper published Kantar Ibope Media's ranking of the twenty most-watched television programmes of 2025 to that point — “los diez meses y monedas que han transcurrido del 2025” — in which the Uruguay v Peru World Cup qualifier on Canal 5 stood first at 22.5 rating points and 272,227 viewers and was the only sport broadcast listed.^[2] On 4 November 2025 it published the radio measurement carried out by the consultancy Factum for the Buró de Radios, giving weekly averages of 0.43 points and 5,899 listeners for El Espectador Deportes, 0.36 points and 4,938 for Sport 890 and 0.19 points and 2,606 for Carve Deportiva.^[3]

The second is the commercial governance of football. The paper reported the AUF's television tender in detail on 9 December 2025, including the four sublots in which Tenfield retained a contractual right to match a higher offer and the dates on which the outgoing and incoming contracts began and ended.^[4] It had covered the same relationship fourteen years earlier, setting out in 2011 the terms of the contract then running.^[5] On 17 September 2026 it published the public broadcaster's 2026 World Cup accounts.^[6]

How large is Referí's audience?

No audited circulation or digital audience figure for El Observador or for Referí could be retrieved for this page, and none is given. Uruguay has recognised measurement currencies — Kantar Ibope Media for television and Factum for radio — and the newspaper reports both, but neither measures the newspaper itself.^[2][3]

Traffic estimators are not audited measurement and are not used here. The absence is a limitation of the evidence that could be retrieved, and it is recorded rather than filled.

Since when has Referí existed?

No founding date for the Referí desk, and no founding date for El Observador, could be established from a source retrieved for this page. The desk's own index page carries no statement of establishment; its footer gives the address “Edificio Plaza Alemania - La Cumparsita 1475., C.P. 11.200 Montevideo - Uruguay” and a copyright line for 2025, and no founding year.^[1]

What the material does establish is a continuous run of dated output on the same subjects. The paper's coverage of the AUF's relationship with its rights holder runs at least from 23 September 2011, when it published an explanatory piece on the dispute then under way, to 9 December 2025, when it reported the closing stage of the tender for the 2026–2029 cycle.^[5][4] Its audience reporting is dated to 4 and 11 November 2025 and to 17 September 2026.^[3][2][6]

Why does Referí matter in Uruguay's sport?

It matters because it is where several of the measured figures about Uruguayan sport are published. The Kantar Ibope ranking of 2025 and the Factum radio averages for the same year both reached the public through this newspaper, with the measuring body named in each case.^[2][3] The same applies to the values attached to the AUF's rights lots, which the paper reported alongside the procedural steps and the names of those taking them.^[4]

It also matters that the desk sits on the newspaper's domain rather than on one of its own, which is why this list records the parent address. The distinction is a practical one for readers following a citation: a Referí article carries an elobservador.com.uy address and is part of the newspaper's numbering.^[1]

On ownership, the named monitoring body that has published on Uruguayan media concentration is OBSERVACOM, whose study En pocas manos was reported on 10 December 2017 as examining “los tres grandes grupos mediáticos del país formados en torno a los canales de TV comerciales de Montevideo”, naming the Villar/De Feo, Romay and Cardoso/Scheck groups.^[7] That passage is about commercial television groups and does not name this newspaper; no ownership finding about El Observador is drawn from it.^[7]