As football is the most popular sport and form of entertainment in Brazil, newspapers give significant daily coverage to all football-related matters.
As far as the media situation in Brazil is concerned, it is interesting to note
that there are 232 newspapers (national, regional and local) in the country.
As football is the most popular sport and form of entertainment in Brazil, all
of those newspapers give significant daily coverage to all football-related
matters. Of these 232 newspapers, ten newspapers based in the big cities
(Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia) provide national coverage and a
further four national agencies, six magazines, two TV channels, one radio
station and two internet websites cover the whole country.
Sao Paulo state has the largest number of newspapers (51), followed by the
state of Minas Gerais (27), whereas Rio de Janeiro state has 20. There is also
significant news coverage in states such as Bahia (14 newspapers), Parana
(17 plus one internet site), Santa Catarina (7) and Rio Grande do Sul (15).
As for TV and radio stations the numbers are also impressive, with 130 TV
stations and 1,365 radio stations transmitting on AM and 296 on FM across
the country.
With regard to media needs for a FIFA World Cup™, we wish to point out
that this analysis of the media facilities and media infrastructures is based on
the stadium projects of the prospective host cities for 2014. Of the 18
prospective host cities presented by the bid LOC, only four require brand-new
stadiums: the Zagallo Arena (Maceio), the Estrela dos Reis Magos (Natal),
the Recife/Olinda Arena (Recife) and the Bahia Arena (Salvador). All the other
stadiums will be rebuilt or renovated. In fact, this is the only way to
guarantee all the FIFA requirements, since the current stadiums, despite some
renovation work in the past few years, lack the necessary media and other
infrastructure to host a FIFA World Cup™ match.
The projects for new or renovated stadiums are most impressive. One
important element that is common to almost all of them is the huge amount
of space inside and around the arenas, which enables the facilities to meet all
media requirements. However, one cannot ignore the fact that all the projects
are pending the final decision in October.
With the exception of the Baixada Arena in Curitiba (Atletico Paranaense), the
Orlando Scarpelli in Florianopolis (Figueirense), the Beira Rio in Porto Alegre
(Internacional) and the Morumbi in Sao Paulo (Sao Paulo), all the stadiums
belong to the respective federal states. This means that almost all of them are
used by two or three local football clubs, which is the average number of major
clubs in each state.
As for training ground facilities for the media, there should be no problems
since many of them have the necessary space and requirements to receive
media representatives. Nevertheless, this should also be reviewed at a later
stage because most if not all of them will need important work to adapt to
the needs of a FIFA World Cup.
A detailed report of the media facilities needed for hosting a FIFA World Cup
can be found as an annexe at the end of this document. Nevertheless,
suffice to say that the projects presented clearly demonstrate that Brazil would
be able to meet the media requirements of the 2014 FIFA World Cup.