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In May 2020, Joe Rogan signed a $100m+ licensing deal with Spotify giving the streaming platform exclusive access to his podcast.
Spotify’s market cap jumped by ~$4B within a day of the announcement. On paper, the deal looked like a win-win.
A new report from The Verge suggests Spotify got the better end of the deal.
Spotify hasn’t revealed Rogan’s listenership numbers, so the report looked at a variety of secondary metrics before and after the signing, including:
When the deal was announced, Andrew Wilkinson of Tiny compared the move to Howard Stern’s deal with Sirius, arguing that Rogan got ripped off.
Citing Stern’s waning cultural influence, he questioned whether Rogan’s payout was worth the trade-offs of going exclusive. Specifically:
Seeing the downsides of exclusivity firsthand will likely influence up-and-coming podcasters facing similar decisions.
Alex Cooper of Call Her Daddy and Dax Shepard of Armchair Expert both signed exclusive deals with Spotify recently — will others be so fast to follow suit?
In Rogan’s case, it’s hard to argue with a $100m+ payday, but there’s still a good chance he sold himself short.