The Truth Behind Huge Celebrity Podcast Deals
Podcasts are what I call a 1-1-98 platform — 1% make good money, 1% make great money, and 98% don’t.
Podcasts are incredibly hard to:
Build an audience (listenership is hard to build and harder to keep listening)
And keep that audience engaged - it’s a huge time commitment
Find guests
Organise and edit
Make money from
Finding sponsors
Find partners who are willing to be placed against content they can’t control
These are just a few reasons why podcasts have been flooded with celebrities and influencers creating podcasts and joining ad and media networks. They have the audience already built in (the superfans will go anywhere they go), they have a phone book full of friends for guests, they have an inbuilt team creating, editing and helping with distribution and ad deals are factored in upfront.
So let’s dive deeper into these major deals and why brands compete on huge deals for “podcasts”.
The Mega Deals
There have been 4 huge deals worth over $100m this year for popular podcasts:
This week; The Kelce brothers (NFL players) have signed a 3-year $100m deal with Wondery (part of Amazon).
Last month; Call Her Daddy co-creator Alex Cooper signed a new 3-year deal worth $125 million with SiriusXM (for her podcast and her new network of podcasts) leaving Spotify.
In February; Joe Rogan renewed his Spotify contract for another 4 years for $250 million.
In January; SmartLess (with Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, & Will Arnett) left Wondery for a 3-year deal worth $100 million with SiriusXM (Warren Buffet famously invested heavily earlier this summer in SiriusXM).
This is (US) Podtrac data from July with the podcast publishers and the size of their audience with downloads. Many have huge networks of shows that enable a bigger deeper ad offering.
Wondery which is part of Amazon signed The Kelce brothers podcast and joins their 625 roster of podcasts.
Above data and screenshot via Chartable - The majority of the top ranked podcasts are celebrity fronted and are on media or ad networks -- independents really struggle to rank and then monetise outside of the top 250 podcasts.
So What? Why Is This important?
Costs: There are now millions of podcasts but very few are independent and few make money if anything they lose money with the cost of tools and time
Fees First: Celebrity fronted Podcasts (in-built audience and superfans) have become incredibly popular, especially a-list podcasts, celebrity pods dominate the podcast rankings and hold typically huge bi-weekly audiences, so much so these podcasts charge 5 to high 6-digit rates for ads, some smartly charge huge figures to advertise on the back catalogue.
These stars have the option to go out and create a podcast with a team and a network behind them or go and join YouTube like Ronaldo and Tom Brady have in the last few weeks
Reach - Audience - Spread: The influence celebrity podcasts have is far-reaching, especially what is being shared and the stories being told (untold elsewhere), these are then flipped into news stories and create headline stories in mainstream media who struggle to build relationships with stars like they used to. Podcasters and their teams know this and play to this with deliberate clips that are seeded or “leaked” from their teams
Pay To Play: Many smart PR firms are pushing their clients to host and cohost and paying large sums of money to appear on tier 1 podcasts and vodcasts (video podcasts)
Deeper Connection - Owning The Narrative(s): Podcasts are the new way to build audiences, host & control debates and are being used to rebuild careers, recent examples include: the 2 hours of Candace Owens interviewing Andrew Tate, President Trump on Theo Von podcast was something else, Peter Thiel on Joe Rogan was painful to watch — all leading to huge listenership/views and driving huge awareness to brands sponsoring
Ranking Dominance: (Shown above) Big ad & media networks back the majority of the top 200 podcasts and have big talent fronting the pod - stars come with an existing audience and advertisers will invest massively into these pods
Sponsors demand ad reads by the hosts and are charged a premium for doing so as it feels less like an ad and more like an endorsement
Product Placement Becomes Product Play: Some are now negotiating with hosts and guests to show, drink/eat the products and discuss within the podcast
Big Bucks: Acquired a popular long-form podcast on how companies were built and the strategy behind them charges $500k for 4-episode midroll sponsorship or $750k for presenting sponsor
Ads! This is why SiriusXM, Spotify and Amazon are investing millions in 3-year+ deals on these podcast advertising deals and actively negotiating against each other for these huge podcasts
New Ad Networks: Tech giants like Amazon & Spotify and Podcast networks are moving away from exclusive shows only on their platforms and moving towards owning the ads inside the pods (and connected to the pods) and inserting ads across the feeds onto Apple, Spotify and YouTube.
Ads = Paid Brand Moments Brands are looking for the best possible advertising options, whether that is brand-side to find a new audience or creators looking for ad partners to monetise their latest moves.
Brands are looking for reach, celebrities have reach & superfans are willing to support, ad networks can insert more ads (ad load aka the number of ads is up and increasing)
Existing sponsors of the athletes or celebrities will feature and become marketing moments for these brands
The Vodcast Evolution: The recent move to video-first podcasts allows their audiences to select the platform they prefer, however, importantly enabling different ad offerings from audio (podcasts) to video (vodcasts) and video can earn from views via AdSense.
The vodcast format lends itself to celebrities and influencers, seeing the celebrity (or hate watching which is common) and will lead to more ad slots inside
Over the last six months: Joe Rogan has published 1,998 videos (with his move back to YouTube he has uploaded old content onto YouTube from Spotify), with 400k subscribers racking up 1,857,540,158 views (via VidIQ). Joe Rogan has a total of 17.2M subscribers and a back catalogue of 3.2K videos.
The TLDR
Like all other platforms and channels - Brands will open up their budgets for popular podcasts and be associated with their huge reach.
Celebrities love the new format as do their PR firms and the ad-exclusive deals are huge and will continue to be while celebrity podcasters attract their celeb friends and major names to tell stories while brands can piggyback from an ad inserted into it
Media will continue to write about their pods, and their appearances and drive listeners and viewers
Fans will give them a listen and superfans will love, promote and even pay a subscription if there are PPV podcasts
Expect video to become a key part of the celebrity podcast industry and be able to charge an additional premium to be a sponsor or featured within the vodcast and then ads being inserted in to the back catalogue
FYI A more condensed version of this article was a dedicated segment from the August drop of my Must Reads newsletter.
Premier League Shirt Sponsorship Problem?
This season’s sponsors are a telling state of the sponsorship market and who can afford to invest millions into sponsorship.
I am a big football fan (arsenal fan) and a student of business - the two worlds collated when looking through the premier league fantasy football app and then spotting the shirt sponsors… it was a little troubling. (Take a look through this season’s kits here)
We have moved away from the domination of crypto brands in the last few seasons and moved towards international gambling.
It’s a powerful trend as many of these sponsors have limited presence in England and are looking to leverage the reported global viewership of ~3.2bn.
Here are some of the main takeaways taking a look through:
11 (of 20) of the main sponsors of the premier league clubs are gambling sponsors (this is agreed to stop from the 2026/2027 season)
Crystal Palance’s sponsor Net88 is not active in the UK (is regulated) and their site doesn’t work
The price of these sponsorships every season is not cheap, the lowest is believed to be north £4m per year, whereas Snapdragon's sponsorship of Man Utd is reported to be £60m per year
Notts Forest's main sponsor is the sleeve of Crystal Palace and is an official brand partner of Chelsea - it also has received warnings from the UK Gambling Commission.
Everton's main sponsor stake also owns its sleeve sponsor kick (twitch’s rival)
Shirt manufacturers is an interesting story
Adidas x7 (11 in total in English pro football)
Umbro x4 (10 in total in English pro football)
Castore x1 *but has the sub-licence to Umbro UK (6 in total in English pro football)
Nike x4 (6 in total in English pro football)
Puma x2 (17 in total in English pro football)
Macron x1 (17 in total in English pro football)
Sudu x 1 (a brand new manufacturer - a company of ex-designers from many of the largest manufacturers)
So does this mean we have an issue with sponsorship in English pro football with large gambling issues across Britain? To me, yes, but would many other industries could afford to cover these costs?
£5m per year in sponsorship is a huge investment (ask struggling car brand Cazoo and other businesses what happened with their huge investment into sponsorship) and the ROI is often questioned at the sponsor’s brand level - the next industry might have to be equally questionable or we may have to see the costs be put back on the fan… and from my experience overseeing hundreds of professional and semi-professional teams needing bailing out by fans crowdfunding, football clubs will need to be saved by their superfans again.
If you enjoyed this article, enjoy the following ↓
The Financial Breakdown Of Wimbledon Tennis Tournament
This is a brilliant and timely breakdown of how much Wimbledon makes.
Watch to find out more on:
How £350m is made each year
54000 balls are used in the two weeks
How it makes money from media rights, sponsorship, ticketing, hospitality, food & drink
How sponsors like Ralph Lauren, Evian, Jaguar, Land Rover and IBM make the tournament and invest millions each year in return for Marketing opportunities and ROI
Why Wimbledon will continue to raise prices knowing thousands will pay for its experience
Why strawberries and cream haven’t pricing has not changed
The business of sport is well worth a subscription, I recommend watching the business behind Tottenham Hotspurs (below) and what happens inside the boardroom there.
Is Shirt Sponsorship Worth It?
Is Sponsoring Man Utd Going To Be The Consumer Brand Moment Snapdragon Needs?
Snapdragon (the brand) is unknown to most consumers, if not almost everyone.
It’s Qualcomm’s consumer-facing brand. Maybe you’ve heard of them? Don’t worry most haven’t and wouldn’t recall the brand.
Well if you haven’t heard, I wouldn’t worry about it you’re about to see Snapdragon many times a week. Queue the Eric Cantona teaser above.
Their quick backstory:
Snapdragon is a chip in many smartphones and laptops (think PC laptops that are surfaces, Dell’s etc) that many use for work.
Snapdragon is looking to leverage the AI movement and this is a (smart) brand play
Snapdragon is a Mercedes AMG F1 team sponsor
Why has Eric Cantona returned to Old Trafford? The Snapdragon brand has just become the shirt sponsor of Manchester United, meaning they’ll be featured on the kits (think live TV coverage, Match Of The Day, social media highlights, fans wearing their team kits (home, away and 3rd shirts) & global TV ads constantly in your social feeds through players, TV and in your daily lives).
The BIG Question: Is £60m A Year Worth The Investment?
Will $75m/£60m a year (for a 5-year deal) sponsorship of one of the top teams in the world be worth it for Qualcomm and their consumer chip Snapdragon?
Or is this more of an awareness play? Will the CMOs get the leeway and the access to make this worth the big long term investment?
But what if the brand isn’t expecting any payback from their huge investment - is this ok? In my boardrooms now it won’t be ok, it is for the Marketing & Partnerships teams to make the most out of this, to get in front of the core consumer and bring the Snapdragon brand to the forefront of the purchase cycle when buying a new laptop or smartphone with the chip in it.
Shirt Sponsorship is really the new billboard, it spreads far and wide and brand recall shoots up, but the hard question to answer is it ever going to be worth while? The Qualcomm management team have compared it to a weekly SuperBowl ad… I hope they are right and give their teams internally the creative space to make more out of it.