Spotify Price Hike, Arsenal Takeover & Twitter Backlash
Today's Newsletter talks about Spotify's decision to hike subscription prices in UK and Europe amidst claims that Founder Daniel Ek was planning a hostile takeover of Arsenal FC.
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What’s up people?
Social Media has been going wild the past 24 hours with news that Spotify’s Billionaire Founder and CEO, Daniel Ek has been planning a hostile takeover of Arsenal FC, the club that Ek claims he supported as a child.
Earlier this week, amidst the uproar by football fans around the globe against news that 12 European clubs were planning a breakaway football league, called European Super League, which eventually lasted for all of 48 hours, Ek tweeted in support of a change of ownership at multiple clubs including Arsenal.
KSE, or Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, own multiple sports teams around the world apart from Arsenal, including NFL’s Los Angeles Rams, NBA’s Denver Nuggets, and NHL’s Colorado Avalanche.
The larger fanbase of Arsenal has been traditionally displeased with the management of Stan and Josh Kroenke, the father-son duo which controls a majority of KSE. So when Daniel Ek announced that he was willing to “throw his hat into the ring” to purchase Arsenal, naturally Arsenal fans got excited.
The Spotify CEO himself is worth around a reported $4.7 Billion, according to Forbes. Earlier today, it was reported that Ek along with Arsenal legends and members of the 2004 Invincibles squad: Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, and Patrick Viera are planning a takeover of the club.
Ironically enough, this news coincided with Spotify announcing that they were raising subscription prices across the markets of the UK and Europe.
According to the email, the price for Premium Duo in the UK will go from £12.99 per month to £13.99 per month. However, the email says that existing Premium Duo subscribers will get one additional month at the current price, meaning that the new price will become effective from June onwards.
The price increases seem to differ depending on the plan. For students, the price will go up from £4.99 to £5.99. For individuals, the price will also increase by £1, from £9.99 to £10.99. Finally, for Family plans, the price will increase by £2, from £14.99 to £16.99.
Along with this, Spotify also announced that they were integrating a new player inside the Facebook mobile apps. The so-called Project Boombox initiative will let you listen to any music or podcast episode shared by a friend, family member, artist, or creator directly from the News Feed of Facebook.
The new feature will be rolled out in 27 countries to begin with by Facebook and Spotify, as part of their strategic alliance announced earlier to take on audio-based applications such as Clubhouse by introducing features of Podcasting and live ‘Rooms’.
Naturally, with all these developments related to Daniel Ek announcing his intent to takeover Arsenal, along with its instant price hike, it didn’t take long for fans to put two and two together.
While the rival fans are losing their heads over the timing of both the announcements, the jokes are flying well amongst the Arsenal faithful at the prospect of having the Spotify CEO take the helm along with 3 legends of the club.
Neutral music followers have voiced concerns over whether this price hike would result in an equivalent raise for Artist payouts from Spotify, which has been a topic of much controversy and has been covered by us in a previous edition of our Newsletter here.
Whether the deal with Arsenal for the Spotify CEO goes through or not, one thing is for sure that the timing of the announcement could have been better.
As they say, “Fate loves Irony”, and the most entertaining outcome is the most likely.
With all the things that have been happening in 2021, the CEO of a music streaming app taking over a 135-year-old football club worth roughly $2.8 Billion, seems to fit right in.
That’s it for today, have a good one guys and we’ll talk tomorrow.
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