“A Game-Changing Partnership Has Been Formed.”    – Maybe.
Shawn Corey Carter acquired TIDAL, the high-definition music streaming service, back in March 2015 for a respectable $56 million. Since then, he has enlisted the help of notable A-List Musicians such as Daft Punk, Calvin Harris, and Deadmau5 to further develop the platform. It’s now being reported that as of Monday, January 23rd, Sprint Corporation has partnered with TIDAL in a multi-million dollar business venture, and received 33% company ownership in return.
And just how much did Jay Z receive in return for Sprint’s partial acquisition, you might be wondering? Only a cool $200 million…. valuing his company at over 10x more than what he initially acquired it for from Aspiro, nearly 2 years ago. It’s still no Spotify or Apple Music, but nevertheless very nicely done, Mr. Carter.
Financial gain aside, Jay Z had this to say about the new partnership:
“Sprint shares our view of revolutionizing the creative industry to allow artists to connect directly with their fans and reach their fullest, shared potential. Marcelo [Claure, Sprint’s CEO,] understood our goal right away and together we are excited to bring Sprint’s 45 million customers an unmatched entertainment experience.”
All 45 million Sprint retail customers will soon have unlimited access to exclusive artist content not available anywhere else, but TIDAL. Whether or not you’ll have to pay for that service, is not clear yet. And neither is whether or not using the service will count against your data. So maybe don’t get your hopes up for free content just yet, Sprint Customers.
“TIDAL and its artists will make exclusive content that will only be available to current and new Sprint customers.“
Apparently $75 million from Sprint’s $200 million investment will be used by Artists partnered with TIDAL to give them “the flexibility to create and share their work” – sounds game changing to us!
