Joe Rogan lands new deal with Spotify worth up to $250 million

Joe Rogan has signed a new multi-year partnership deal for his podcast, the Joe Rogan experiencereportedly worth up to $250 million, the Wall Street Journal References.

Under the deal, his controversial show – which has been exclusive to Spotify for the past three years – will now be available on other services including Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and YouTube. According WSJ, the new pact includes a minimum initial guarantee and a revenue sharing agreement based on ad sales. the media service will handle the sale and distribution of ads for the podcast in favor of wider distribution. Shares of the streaming audio giant rose about 2 percent on Friday.

Rogan's show has released more than 2,200 episodes to date, according to Spotify, and in suspension on the platform, he called the conversations on his show “a kind of soul food.” Spotify first brought Rogan to its platform in 2020 in a deal reportedly worth more than $100 million and made his podcast a Spotify exclusive.

It has garnered backlash in recent years and has been accused of peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories about Covid-19. In 2022, several musicians, including Neil Young and Joni Mitchell, called for a boycott of Spotify due to the podcaster's anti-piracy comments and pulled their music from the platform.

In the same year, Spotify deleted several archival episodes of The Joe Rogan Experiencefollowing reports that Rogan had been recorded on the show using racial slurs many times in many different contexts. Spotify has remained steadfast in its support of Rogan throughout the controversy, and his most popular episodes continue to attract millions of listeners.