Joe Rogan works out to ’90s hip-hop. Spotify wanted you to know that on Thursday (Oct. 8), when it announced a new multi-year licensing deal for The Joe Rogan Experience, six years after the show first moved to the platform.
The setup doesn’t change. New episodes will keep arriving on Spotify every week and on other platforms too, which preserves the non-exclusive arrangement the two sides reached in 2024, Music Business Worldwide reports. Spotify didn’t disclose money. The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported terms similar to the last deal, which carried an estimated earnout of $250 million.
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Spotify calls the show the world’s most popular podcast, with 18 million followers on the app and the title of its most-followed show since 2020. It also says the podcast ranked No. 1 on every major platform in 2025.
I’m extremely happy and excited to continue with them for years to come.
Joe Rogan, Spotify
The playlist part
To mark the news, Spotify asked Rogan a few questions about his listening habits, and the answers are the most music-literate thing in the announcement. His workout playlist is mostly ’90s hip-hop, which he says he considers the golden age: “Lots of Wu-Tang, Nas, Biggie, and Kool G Rap.” Sometimes he flips to ’60s rock, but the beats and aggressive lyrics win.
The last song he sent a friend was Craig Mack’s “Wooden Horse,” which he called a “forgotten gem” by an underappreciated artist. His go-to podcast for errands is The Tim Dillon Show.
Why the terms matter
The deal’s history is partly a music story. Rogan’s 2020 exclusive, which the Wall Street Journal reported at more than $100 million at the time, pulled the show off other services. In January 2022, Neil Young removed his catalogue from Spotify in protest over the show. Spotify and Rogan ended the exclusivity in February 2024, and Young pointed to that change when he announced his return that March, MBW notes.
The renewal also lands as Spotify leans harder on creators. On Sept. 17, it said it would bring its Partner Program, which pays eligible video podcasters a share of Premium video revenue, to more than 35 new markets. The company says monthly payouts to enrolled shows have grown by more than a third since it loosened eligibility earlier this year.
One more data point from MBW: in the U.S., the show topped Edison Research’s Top 50 Podcasts ranking for the second quarter of 2026. Neither Spotify’s announcement nor MBW’s report says how long “multi-year” runs.
