In an exclusive interview with PROPMARK, Galvão and Play9 signed a partnership until 2026 that will focus on the creation of content products and branded content
With a contract until December 31 of this year with Globo, Galvão Bueno has already outlined his plan for the next four years. The next stop for one of the main sports narrators in Brazil will be Play9, a content studio founded by youtuber Felipe Neto and digital entrepreneur and ex-Globo João Pedro Paes Leme.
The objective of the partnership, which begins now and will continue until 2026, is to create recurring and seasonal content and branded content products on the most diverse platforms. Play9, in turn, plans to increase Galvão’s presence on all digital platforms, including those on which it does not yet operate, such as YouTube and Twitch, for example.
In this exclusive interview with PROPMARK, Galvão Bueno talks about what he expects for this new stage of his career, the changes he has witnessed on Brazilian TV, the plans to closely follow the Bueno Wines harvest and the most memorable moments as a narrator.
What are your plans for once you leave the station?
My contract with Rede Globo runs until December 31, but my main commitment is until December 18, with the World Cup final. Then I want three months to organize myself. In the first month, I intend to travel a little around the world as I always did. In the other two months – February and March – I will follow the Bueno Wines harvest in a more dedicated way. Which doesn’t mean you can’t work during that period. But from there I will start a new life. It’s like I’ve always said: I turn a page, but I don’t close the book. I really don’t know how to live without working, I have new projects and challenges. One of them is really diving headfirst into this new digital world. Maybe create new things in the digital world, because I wouldn’t want to do the same thing that others already do. I want to transpose myself from open TV – which was my home for almost 49 years – and do something different from what has already been done.
What to expect from your partnership with Play9?
Play9 is a successful company, created by a friend and great working partner for many years. João Pedro Paes Leme is among the professionals that I am very proud of, which are the reporters who spent time in Formula 1 working with me and Reginaldo Leme. They arrived there very young and that helped them a lot to train as communication and television professionals. And the names are very expressive, like Roberto Cabrini, Marcos Uchôa, João Pedro himself, Pedro Bassan and others who entered the sequence. And they all became major characters on Brazilian television in their areas. I’ve known João Pedro since that time and he built a beautiful career until he was my director at Globo. And in a short time, he managed to do a very important job in this new world of communications. “Play” comes from playing. And the “9” symbolizes something I admire a lot, which is “rebirth”, which can mean overcoming and renewal. So, my partnership with Play 9 already starts from a very cool place from the name: play to be reborn; do to be reborn. The structure that João Pedro set up is really impressive, with great professionals. We will do very well in this new challenge, as we have done in all the years of television.
Other journalists and presenters, including Globo, left TV to bet on an influencer career. Ivan More and Tino Marcos are some examples. In your opinion, what has contributed to this movement?
Tino Marcos is one of my great partners. I have great partners in television that I highlight for their longevity and proximity: Reginaldo Leme, throughout the history of Formula 1; Arnaldo Cézar Coelho, for almost 30 years together, forming the duo with possibly the greatest repercussion and success in sports on Brazilian television; and Tino Marcos, from so many world cups and games in Brazil. I always say that he has a unique ability to do 45 creative and interesting reports for Jornal Nacional every day at a World Cup. In addition to the “Galvão? Say it, Tino! Felt!”, he always gave me great confidence to be there and to turn to him if I lacked any information. I don’t really like some uses of the term “influencer” and I don’t expect to be one either. I do want to trace my paths to becoming a publisher. Today there is a lot of talk about platform, but I imagine myself being a hub and using all platforms for different types of content, whether it’s a broadcast, a program, an interview or a story. Often someone with 30, 40 or 100 million followers would not be considered an influencer in my view.
On the other hand, someone with 100k followers might fall into this category. But anyway, everyone chooses their moment. This is a time of change for me and for the world as a whole. It would be very comfortable to continue doing what I have always done and which I consider to have reached a point of excellence doing – which is the case of Tino Marcos himself. There is no doubt that he was the best reporter for the Brazilian team in the history of Brazilian TV. In our type of work we can never be accommodated. And that’s exactly what I intend to do now: seek new challenges. It wouldn’t make sense not to renew the contract with Globo, narrate my last World Cup on open TV and go somewhere else to do something else on open TV. No, let’s stop, reflect and dive headfirst into what could be a new path.
What types of content catch your attention right now?
An immediate response would be to talk about sports content, which is what I’ve done my whole life. But I also think I have the knowledge to discuss other things that are connected to my life and are a passion, like wine. My profession until today threw me into the world and I learned to live in it, I learned to know it, which can inspire various contents. I don’t want to do a travel and tourism program, but I believe it makes sense to show a little of the world.
You are part of the history of Brazilian communication and you have witnessed over the last four decades a whole process of media transformation. How do you analyze this journey and what do you see as the future of communication?
In fact, it’s been almost five full decades of journey, because when I’m really inside this new project I’ll already have 49 years of profession. I really experienced all the change that there was in television in terms of quality, quantity. When I started doing my broadcasts, we had two cameras. Then a third appeared. Today there are more than 30 in a football game. I always joke that I just need to put a camera on the ball to travel with it. Then the dynamic increased. We used to work with the old VTs1200 that gave drop out, that is, it folded and had to do it all over again. At that time to broadcast Formula 1 on the other side of the world, we tried to contact the central and, if no one answered until the moment of starting, we would count to 10 and deliver it to God and only find out later if it had arrived or not.
The world as a whole has evolved technologically in an absurd way in these 50 years, from when I started in a game with two cameras to what is a broadcast today. And to what will be on December 18th the broadcast of the World Cup final. The speed, the dynamics, the sharpness, the change of images. And all this forces you to change your reasoning and your way of speaking, never finding yourself more important than the images, in my case, but also not diminishing yourself to the point of becoming unnecessary. But evolution was an absurd thing indeed. And even open TV, which I’m practically leaving now at the end of the year, will continue to evolve. But the evolution of the digital world is almost crazy, it’s daily. I have a great idea of exactly what all this change on TV was and I’m going to need, after 70 years, to understand what it’s like in the virtual world and to speed up even more. Today you sleep one way and wake up another. It’s a very crazy world. But that’s exactly why it’s very challenging. And a professional who has reached the level I reached wants challenges and overcome the next difficulties.
What are the three most memorable moments/narratives you will never forget?
I prefer to leave Senna’s death out. It was so painful and so painful. Definitely the hardest to do. Now in football it was without a doubt Tetra’s conquest. Being there with Pelé, with Arnaldo, having our image thrown around the world. Of course we were on Pelé’s ride, because the company responsible for broadcasting the final of the ’94 cup Brazil x Italy – first with a decision on penalties, all that crazy – wanted to show him celebrating, right? And at that time he was hugging my neck and I was screaming like crazy. In Formula 1 it was Senna’s first title in ’88, which is even earlier. So it would be this title, then the Tetra and in the Olympic broadcasts and the silver medal in the 4×100 athletics in Sydney 2000. It’s silver, it’s silver, it’s silver, it’s silver! A silver that to me is worth more than gold. I think it was a medal that was very marked in the lives of the four who were there running and for me because in less than 40 seconds you tell a whole story with 32 guys running with a baton pass and a brilliant achievement.
