Music Venue Trust criticise Spotify’s £235m FC Barcelona deal

nme.com:

Spotify‘s huge new sponsorship deal with FC Barcelona, saying the cash could have helped hundreds of struggling music venues instead.After significant rumours, today (March 16) it was confirmed that the streaming service have confirmed a groundbreaking sponsorship deal with the world famous Spanish club, which will see Spotify’s logo appear on match and training kits, and the club’s stadium renamed the Spotify Nou Camp.A statement described the deal as a “first-of-its-kind partnership for the club in bringing the worlds of music and football together” and is set to “see the pair working together to create opportunities for the iconic shirt to become a space that can celebrate artists from across the world”.In a series of tweets responding to the news, the MVT said: “For the amount of money Spotify have agreed to spend on TEMPORARILY branding FC Barcelona they could, instead, have secured a PERMANENT future for circa 700 UK Grassroots Music Venues.For the amount of money Spotify have agreed to spend on TEMPORARILY branding FC Barcelona they could, instead, have secured a PERMANENT future for circa 700 UK Grassroots Music Venues.— Music Venue Trust (@musicvenuetrust) March 16, 2022“Such an investment could have unleashed £40 million per annum into grassroots artist talent development, from which Spotify, [Universal, Sony, Warner] and others are the ultimate financial beneficiaries.”They added: “Not only that, but an investment of money in this way would generate a reasonable financial return, being invested into bricks and mortar and therefore remaining an asset.

That’s how sensible investment works.“Spotify could have taken this money, invested it in music infrastructure, kept the asset value, improved economics for every.