Rio Gringa

Five Reasons Why So Many Brazilian World Cup Spectators Are Rich and White

When Brazil ended up using largely public funds to finance stadiums, there was a hope that at least a wide array of Brazilians would be able to witness games on their home turf to take advantage of playing host. But when the tournament began, some observed that Brazil team games appeared to be a sea of white faces in the stands. Then, pollster Datafolha decided to find out definitively, surveying attendees at Saturday's Brazil vs. Chile game. Around 67 percent of attendees identified as white, and 90 percent identified as members of the A and B classes, or the highest-earning social classes in Brazil. So why is this the case?

5. It's part of a larger international trend of expensive soccer tickets. In the UK, for example, the average for the cheapest adult season ticket to a top-four division soccer match cost around US$573 last year. Plus, some observers noted that overall, regardless of the teams playing, this year's World Cup matches appear to have largely white crowds.

4. Ticket scalping is a problem. There have been numerous reports about reselling World Cup tickets online for inflated prices. Some of those tickets are from the discounted category, and it's possible those who got discounted seats tried to make a profit. Plus, jacked-up prices for scalped tickets mean last-minute buyers tend to be more well off.

3. Brazil's World Cup Law defined discount ticketing... Before signing the controversial World Cup Law, President Dilma Rousseff vetoed a provision that would have reserved 10 percent of all Brazil-team game tickets for discounted seats. Instead, she vetoed another provision suspending state and municipal ticketing laws that allow discounts for certain groups. So in the end, FIFA created what was called the "Category 4" tickets exclusive for Brazilians. Within Category 4, there were half-price tickets available for Brazilian students, senior citizens, and recipients of the Bolsa Família program. The Brazilian government said that 400,000 Category 4 tickets would be sold for the whole World Cup, and that 50,000 free tickets would be given to stadium-construction workers and another 50,000 free tickets to indigenous fans and Bolsa Família recipients.

2. ...But ticketing may have worked differently in practice. For the Brazil-Chile game, the cheapest tickets made up around 5 percent of all tickets sold, according to the AP. FIFA says that for group-stage games, it sold 143,364 of the cheapest tickets, amounting to approximately 3,000 tickets per game. But these inexpensive tickets sold out quickly. And while courtesy ticketing took place, there were reports of construction workers scalping their free tickets.

1. While Brazilians paid slightly less than foreigners for tickets, going to a game was still out of reach for many. FIFA charged prices that were marginally cheaper for Brazilians than for foreigners in each ticketing category based on current exchange rates. But tickets were still expensive and Category 4 seats were limited, as one can observe by looking at seating charts. Category 1-3 tickets range from about $82 to $900, with more expensive tickets for the opening match and later rounds of the games. The country does have a large and growing new middle class, but even some of the lower-end Category 3 prices can represent a month's salary for a family of four wanting to attend a game.

Update: for those interested in the racial/socioeconomic divide in Brazil and how this affected World Cup spectatorship, read the Globe & Mail's coverage of this issue.

Image: Fan at the Brazil x Chile game. João de Bourbon/Flickr.

Why the Naysayers Were Wrong About Brazil's World Cup

Ahead of the World Cup, there were several lines of thought about why having the World Cup in Brazil was a bad idea.

First, there was the idea that Brazil wouldn't be able to get its act together and finish in time. It wasn't just a concept from abroad and from portions of the international media, but also among some in Brazil that questioned the country's abilities and worthiness.

Next, there was the fear that protests would spiral out of control and overshadow the games, as well as the worry that general problems with violence would affect visitors.

Then there was the idea that the World Cup was a zero-sum game, and that by pouring billions into stadiums, money was being taken away from areas like education and health.

And there was the idea that the World Cup could be a panacea to modernize the country in the eyes of foreign visitors, particularly in infrastructure and airports.

And here's what actually happened.

Half of infrastructure projects were scrapped, and the lauded Rio-São Paulo bullet train never materialized. But stadiums were finished in time for the games, and a few long-delayed projects like Salvador's metro were miraculously finished. Overall, things have been going smoothly, by most reports. Airports, for example, have been running well with delays below the international average.

There have been protests with outbreaks of violence, but they've been small in comparison to last year's and haven't gained popular support. Instead, Brazilians for the most part have gotten into the spirit of the games.

There haven't been reports of mass muggings or major crime problems for tourists. Some of the worst human rights issues connected to the games, namely mass removals, have received plenty of coverage and awareness even though they happened well ahead of the opening match.

The focus has been, rightfully so, on the beautiful game and the incredible athletic performances themselves. Brazilian social media lit up when an American ESPN journalist wrote:

If the World Cup in Brazil is going to be like this, just have all the World Cups in Brazil.

— Jason Davis (@davisjsn) June 14, 2014

In some ways, the negative press ahead of the games lowered people's expectations, which were met with fewer problems than they'd thought. Unlike the Sochi Olympics, for example, there haven't been widespread complaints about conditions for visitors.

The government says that the World Cup investments won't impact the country's overall spending, and that it continues to spend billions on health and education as it normally would. Stadiums represent just a fraction of public spending on health and education, this line of thought goes.

And the truth about corruption and the validity of largely government-funded investments is something that's going to play out long-term, after all of the tourists and visiting journalists and players have all gone home. The so-called legacy of the games and the return on investment isn't something that will be immediate, but rather be something to watch for years to come.

In the end, the World Cup is a short-term victory for Brazil, whether the national team wins or not. The harder and definitive challenge is what will happen when visitors leave and the Brazil headlines fade, and Brazilians are stuck dealing with the consequences of a month-long event. The World Cup has been a definitive success, but if that success will last far beyond the games remains to be seen.

Image: Brazilian fans during Brazil's opening match. Governo da Bahia.

Rio's Favelas, Over A Decade After City of God

In 2002, a Brazilian movie called City of God was released. It was filmed in Rio's favelas with favela residents as actors. It became an international phenomenon, and was nominated for four Oscars. And since then, there hasn't been a Brazilian film with the same commercial success in the United States since, nor a Brazilian movie that has managed to loom so large in the American imagination about Brazil.

As the World Cup is set to begin, the image of the favela is firmly entrenched in the U.S. coverage of the event, be it the news or commercials. Favelas have been in the foreign spotlight even before the film (think: Michael Jackson), but "favela chic" and the fascination with favela imagery is a clear part of City of God's legacy.

This week, the Brazilian Film Festival of New York debuted the charming documentary City of God: 10 Years Later, which catches up with the actors from the film to find out how they've fared.

A few have saw their careers take off, like Seu Jorge and Alice Braga, and others managed to build acting or showbusiness careers in Brazil. But the majority of actors interviewed in the film are living similar lives. Some have become family men; others are just scraping by. A number were arrested for robbery or involvement in the drug trade; one is presumed dead. One man is selling peanuts and hoping to kick off a music career.

 

Like the actors, Rio's favelas have undergone changes in the time since City of God came out. Pacification has meant that some communities have seen a drop in homicides, though a rise in disappearances and other types of crimes mean the overall result has yet to be defined. A huge socioeconomic shift brought millions into the middle class, meaning that nearly two-thirds of Brazilian favela residents are considered part of the "new middle class." With the development of mobile technology, cheaper phones mean that 90 percent of the new middle class owns a cell. That means homes in favelas are much more likely to now have TVs, computers, and electronics than back in 2002, and a growing number of favela residents are getting access to education and better jobs.


Still, the concepts that City of God cemented are ones that haven't changed much as far as foreign perceptions of favelas. There's still this romanticized or demonized notion of favelas that you'll continue to see throughout the World Cups. Do favelas still suffer from violence, drug trafficking, and poverty? Yes. But they're also an important part of how Brazilian society is transforming.

With this in mind, last month I agreed to be a volunteer writer and translator for Voz da Comunidade, a community news site based in Rio's Complexo do Alemão, run by Rene Silva. My first piece, a translation of my Ingrid Silva profile, ran last week. I agreed to contribute through writing New York stories and doing English translations of Rene's reporting because not only will it be fun to write for a Brazilian audience, but I also think there's a great benefit to getting Rene's coverage to a larger international audience.

Because while violence is an unfortunate reality, there's so much going on and Rene and his staff are able to report from within the community. It's important that foreigners realize that some things haven't changed in Rio's favelas, but thanks to technology and the socioeconomic shift, residents are telling their own stories every day.

Images: U.S. poster for City of God; Rocinha by Steve Martinez, and favela shot by Midia Ninja.

Brazil's 2014 World Cup Hashtags

Social media is going to play a big role in the upcoming World Cup, especially given the controversial nature of this year's games. A new Pew survey released today found that 61 percent of Brazilians think the event will be bad for the country because they say it takes money away from areas such as education and health; 34 percent support the event because they say it will create jobs. Around 39 percent think the World Cup will hurt Brazil's international image; 35 percent say it will help.

And it's precisely this kind of division that you'll find in social media.

• #NãoVaiTerCopa: This hashtag, "there won't be a World Cup," emerged during the June 2013 demonstrations as a way to protest the upcoming mega-event. When some use it, it's almost like a threat, but a lot of what you'll see is people using it to show their opposition to the event or its costs, or to complain about problems associated with the World Cup or lack of preparation for the games.

• #VaiTerCopa: The flipside of the previous hashtag, this hashtag of "there will be a World Cup" is being used as an affirmation of the games and as a way to show support for the event and the Brazilian team. It's also used as a way to talk about good preparation for the World Cup or things that are going well in terms of the event. Another alternative is #VaiTerCopaSim (Yes, there will be a World Cup). Still, it is sometimes used ironically to poke fun at things like broken English or problems ahead of the event.

• #VaiTerGreve: "There will be strikes." This hashtag refers to the number of strikes that cropped up across the country ahead of the World Cup, with the potential for more to come.

• #ImaginaNaCopa: "Just imagine during the World Cup." This hashtag has been around for around two years as a lament as to what the mega-event will be like given challenges the country faces. It also inspired a group of young people to turn the phrase on its head by promoting social projects and organizations across the country.

• #CopadasCopas: "The Cup of All Cups!" This is the hashtag the Brazilian government created as an alternative to #NãoVaiTerCopa. It's been getting plenty of play on government channels, but isn't as popular as #VaiTerCopa.

• #PadrãoFIFA: "FIFA Standards." This is generally used as a criticism of things in Brazil that aren't up to par, like transportation or hospitals. This phrase has been used as part of protests that while the country built stadiums up to FIFA standards, areas like health and education aren't up to snuff.

• #CopadoMundo: This is the generic hashtag for the World Cup in Portuguese.

• #RumoAoHexa: "Road to the Sixth." This refers to Brazil being on its way to winning its sixth World Cup, and is being used largely in a sports context.

• #sónobrasil: Only in Brazil. This hashtag is being used to critique Brazilians who say that the country's problems are unique. A Tumblr by the same name does side-by-side comparisons of Brazilian complaints on social media that things happen only in Brazil, along with a real-life example of the same thing happening abroad.

Protest hashtags: these are being used in the context they were during last year's protests,  though the recent demonstrations leading up to the games have been much smaller than last June.

• #vemprarua: this was used during last year's protests, and means come to the streets.
• #FIFAGoHome: self explanatory.
• #CopaPraQuem: "The World Cup for whom?" This hashtag is used as a rallying cry to protest the games.

Images: Justine Arena, Brasilia; hashtag cloud via Keyhole.co