Spotify said Thursday that it has renewed its deal with Joe Rogan, who runs the audio company’s most popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Rogan’s podcast, which has 18 million followers on Spotify, has become the company’s best-selling podcast since 2020. Terms of the multi-year license agreement were not disclosed. The Wall Street Journal, citing unnamed sources, reported that the deal generated an estimated $250 million in revenue.
“Partnering with Spotify has been an incredible fit and working with them is incredible,” Rogan said in a statement. he said. “I am extremely happy and excited to continue with them for years to come.”
Rogan first entered into an exclusive multi-year podcast deal with Spotify in 2020 that was rumored to be worth $100 million. The partnership was key to driving podcast audiences to Spotify, which at the time was mostly known as a music streaming service.
The company expanded its partnership in 2024 to distribute “The Joe Rogan Experience” on other platforms, which continues under its current agreement. Rogan’s show was last year’s top podcast on Spotify, YouTube and Apple Podcasts.
“Joe has built something incredibly enduring, and his show continues to resonate with a massive global audience because there is nothing else like it,” Jordan Newman, Spotify’s head of content partnerships, said in a statement.
“The Joe Rogan Experience” sparked controversy and led to a Neil Young-led Spotify boycott in 2022 over concerns that Rogan and his guests were spreading COVID-19 vaccine misinformation. Rogan also received criticism for how he used the N-word in past episodes of his show, for which he later apologized.
Following the backlash, Spotify published its content moderation rules and said it would add content advisory labels to COVID-related podcasts. Rogan also said he would do a better job of balancing different perspectives.
Young later returned to Spotify in 2024.