The IT Nerd

From the “boy they must have been desperate” department comes a story from the New York Times that cites two sources who both say that Spotify didn’t pay $100 million to land Joe Rogan. It was actually at least $200 million:

To help propel Spotify into its next phase as an all-purpose audio juggernaut, and further challenge Apple and Google, it wanted a superstar podcaster, much as Howard Stern helped put satellite radio on the map in 2006. Spotify executives came to view Joe Rogan — a comedian and sports commentator whose no-holds-barred podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience,” was already a monster hit on YouTube — as that transformative star.

In May 2020, after an intense courtship, Spotify announced a licensing agreement to host Mr. Rogan’s show exclusively. Although reported then to be worth more than $100 million, the true value of the deal that was negotiated at the time, which covered three and a half years, was at least $200 million, with the possibility of more, according to two people familiar with the details of the transaction who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to discuss it.

The $100 million figure certainly explained why despite all the noise around Rogan, Spotify refused to dump him. But if the figure is actually $200 million or more, then this has to be an all in moment for Spotify as you have to imagine that they simply can’t walk away from all that cash regardless of how problematic he is. Which to be frank says a lot about Spotify as a company. Which is that they are willing to do anything to be the top audio platform out there.

Maybe Neil Young was right and Spotify employees should leave while they still have a soul. Because clearly Spotify doesn’t have one.

This entry was posted on February 18, 2022 at 8:16 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Spotify. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.