Spotify and FC Barcelona reportedly close to a sponsorship deal

The deal will reportedly see the Spanish football team's home ground renamed as the Spotify Nou Camp

Spotify and FC Barcelona are reportedly close to agreeing a sponsorship deal, according to a radio station based in the Spanish city.

The football club announced back in September that it has debts of more than £1billion, and they are said to now be in talks with the streaming service over a £237million deal.

The purported three-year deal would see Spotify’s name appear on the shirts of both the men’s and women’s teams, and their training kits. It would also be prefixed to the football giant’s stadium name, which would then be known as the Spotify Nou Camp.

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As well as reports from the radio station RACI (via The Times), a Catalan journalist has also shared a photo online of executives from Spotify meeting with Juli Guiu, FC Barcelona’s vice president of marketing, at the stadium.

Barcelona Nou Camp
Barcelona’s Nou Camp (Picture: Alex Caparros/Getty Images)

If the deal is closed successfully, it could make for some positive news for the streaming platform, which has been embroiled in controversy recently surrounding its exclusive The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

Rogan was called out for spreading “misinformation” about the COVID-19 vaccine on the show, while clips later resurfaced online of him using racial slurs and making racist comments on the programme. Spotify has since removed a large number of episodes from its platform.

Neil Young sparked a boycott of the service, with his music and that of the likes of Joni Mitchell, David Crosby, Graham Nash and more now removed from Spotify. In a statement posted on his website yesterday (February 7), Young told the company’s staff: “I say Daniel Ek is your big problem – not Joe Rogan. Ek pulls the strings. Get out of that place before it eats up your soul. The only goals stated by Ek are about numbers – not art, not creativity.”

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Rogan addressed the backlash last month, saying in a video posted to Instagram: “I don’t always get it right. I will do my best to try to balance out these more controversial viewpoints with other people perspectives so we can maybe find a better point of view.”

In the week following the start of the controversy, it was reported that Spotify had lost more than $2billion in market value. Though the service stopped short of removing content that contained misinformation around the COVID-19 vaccine, it did begin adding content advisories to all relevant podcast episodes addressing the pandemic.

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