Spotify spends millions on naming rights while songwriters struggle [Chris Castle]
Spotify recently buys naming rights to Barcelona FC’s super stadium for approximately 225 million euros, while songwriters and artists are still receiving pennies in royalties, write Chris Castle.
A guest post by Chris Castle of Artist Rights Watch.
If screwups were Easter eggs, Daniel Ek would be the Easter bunny. Right in the middle of Spotify’s crashing stock price, billion-dollar stock buy backs, shenanigans at the Copyright Royalty Board (which grows more chaotic by the day), the Joe Rogan controversy, and an investigation by the UK competition authorities after an investigation by the Digital Culture Media and Sport Committee of the UK House of Commons, here’s another Easter egg that Little Danny missed.
According to Marca, the sport site based in Spain, Ek is soothing his (so far) failed bid to buy the UK football club Arsenal by acquiring the naming rights to Barcelona FC’s super-stadium, Camp Nou, the largest football stadium in Europe.According to Marca:
Sponsorship seems to be the way in which Laporta hopes to get the Blaugrana out of the red and into the black.
An agreement with music streaming platform Spotify, which is expected to be confirmed imminently, will see the club receive 225 million euros.
In turn, Spotify will sponsor the men and women’s shirts as well as their training wear. Furthermore, Spotify will have the rights to the stadium for the next three seasons- which has received mixed reviews from fans of the club.
Barcelona expect annual income of 20 million euros from Spotify to sponsor the Camp Nou, which is estimated to be more than Manchester City‘s deal with Etihad – who sponsor their stadium for 15 million euros per season.
That’s right–not one red cent for artists (or songwriters) but millions for tribute. And how did this deal come about do you think? Well, realize that Barcelona is also shopping for a rather large loan to renovate the Camp Nou stadium and they turned to…Goldman Sachs, which happens to be one of Spotify’s investment bankers. So which came first?
Does Goldman think there’s anything unethical about a company that screws creators all the livelong day but spends hundreds of millions on naming a soccer stadium after itself? (OK, I got that out with a straight face, but you can laugh now.) Evidently not, because in the catechism of Goldman, you stop at the fees novena.
And speaking of fees, what is the source of funds for Daniel Ek’s latest self-aggrandizement or whatever you call it? Perhaps a loan from Goldman before interest rates spike this year if the Federal Reserve really does say goodbye to the easy money era that has bubbled up assets around the world?
