Joe Rogan Podcast Inks Exclusive Deal With Spotify

Spotify just locked down the biggest podcaster in the land. Tuesday afternoon, the platform announced it had agreed to terms with Joe Rogan and his wildly popular podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience. While the move will see episodes of Experience added to Spotify starting in September, the company announced Rogan and the podcast will be exclusive to the company by the end of the year. According to podcast-tracking site Podcast Insights, The Joe Rogan Experience is second on the chart for most popular podcasts in the United States while Forbes says the controversial host is the most-bankable host currently active.

Though the deal is exclusive, it's structured so that Rogan himself retains complete ownership of the podcast. He's also confirmed in a post on Instagram that he'll retain all creative control for the show. Since Spotify won't own the podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience will air on Spotify's rapidly expanding podcasting platform through something the company calls a "multi-year exclusive licensing deal."

"Since its launch in 2009, the pioneering Joe Rogan Experience (JRE) has broken ground and built one of the most loyal and engaged fan bases in the world," the company said in a statement. "Rogan brings his sensibilities as a stand-up comic to the show, and alongside dynamic and diverse guests, he fearlessly broaches far-ranging topics including neuroscience, sports, comedy, health, infectious disease, and our ever-changing culture—all with a mix of curiosity and humor."

Rogan first got his start in entertainment by doing stand-up. Shortly after relocating to Los Angeles in the mid-1990s, he got into the mixed martial arts scene and has become the sport's premier commentator and interviewer since. He's still active on the circuit with the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to this day. Prior to his stint as a podcaster, the entertainer was best known for his role as host of Fear Factor.

Now that Spotify has secured its biggest content creator yet, Spotify content boss Dawn Ostroff say it's only the beginning. "We're making more content exclusive on the platform, [which] allows us to market in a more meaningful way [and] bring people onto the platform," Ostroff said in a previous intereview. "And we're finding that creators are excited about working with us on an exclusive basis, because we're able to put so much more of our marketing and on-platform data and insights in their hands."

Cover photo by Vivian Zink/Syfy/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images