Referees at six Serie A matches on Wednesday held up the boards before kick off with the numbers 0 and 5 on them, in reference to 0.5 percent, the percentage of rights they want from broadcast contracts.
The proposal to grant them the portion was in a recent bill designed to transform the game's ailing finances but Brazil's president removed it from the final version passed into law last week.
A referee at a seventh match had 671 on his scoreboard, the number of the law. Officials at all seven games delayed kick off for one minute and wore black armbands.
"This is the first protest of its kind, we've never done this before and I don't think it has been done anywhere else in South America," Marco Martins, the president of the National Association of Football Referees told Reuters. "It's a historic move."
Martins said officials regularly appear alongside players on all media channels and argued the extra cash he calculated at around 9 million reais a year ($2.56 million) would help improve standards of refereeing.
The Brazilian Football Confederation did not comment on the protests and officials have not said if they will repeat the gesture in future games.
(Reporting by Andrew Downie; editing by Michael Hann)
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