Joe Rogan: The Businessman
If you’ve been on YouTube or Spotify in the past two to three years, you would have come across Joe Rogan’s podcasts, which go by the name “The Joe Rogan Experience”, or JRE for short.
Rogan started as a comedian in 1988 and then switched over to acting for some years in the 2000s. He was the host of the show Fear Factor (USA version of Khatron Ke Khiladi) from 2001 to 2006. He’s played some other notable parts too and his comedy specials are very famous, with two of them being on Netflix right now.
He then started the podcast in 2009, in which he talks to a host of people. His discussions are not limited to only famous personalities. He talks with experts from all kinds of fields and in every episode, there are debates and commentaries on a lot of topics.
And UFC fans would even have seen him commentating and in interviews around the octagon too. He has been with the UFC since 2001, and two years before that too (he had to take a break).
Here’s the JRE Episode with comedian Andrew Schulz that I loved:
Now let’s come to the topic we are interested in: the finances.
First, the active income: Rogan earns millions of dollars from commentary in the UFC and comedy shows combined in a year. And it is important to note that both fighting and comedy are the guy’s interests/passions and he has worked to excel at the way he can monetize those passions.
Second, the JRE podcast. Joe sold the rights to the JRE podcast to Spotify for a $100 million multi-year deal. The deal is beneficial to both parties. Rogan gets the payment and Spotify gets to attract a lot of Rogan fans (and haters too!) to their platform and earn money from that traffic.
Third, sponsors. The podcast attracts a lot of audience due to its host, guests and content, and a lot of traffic means a lot of sponsorships, with products/ads placed inside the video.
Fourth, YouTube Adsense. Rogan uploads a lot of clips and videos from his podcasts onto YouTube. And he has a massive following on that platform too. To be specific, the channel has 15.4M followers as of now. This again means millions of dollars in income from this source.
Fifth, Onnit. Joe Rogan owns 50% of the health and wellness company Onnit. But he didn’t invest his money to get that stake. He became the company’s spokesperson and promoter in exchange for the stake, showing his business acumen. It is estimated that Rogan takes home $2 million every year from this venture.
Sixth, merchandise. He sells JRE merch through the brand “Higher Primate” using the Shopify platform. All the apparel from his line contains references to either JRE or Joe Rogan himself.
Seventh, real estate. As is the case with most wealthy people, Rogan owns a lot of real estate. He spent millions of dollars for his homes in California and then Texas. He also created his own recording studio and a comedy club in Texas.
Eighth, cars and watches. Joe Rogan seems to be a car fanatic. He owns a lot of luxury, classic and modern cars with cars from brands like Tesla, Porsche, Plymouth and Ford. He also owns a lot of luxury watches from brands like Omega, Rolex, Panerai and Casio.
Joe Rogan’s net worth is estimated to be more than $200 million and he is now making tens of millions from all the sources I listed above every year. It just goes to show that building your brand and providing value in the form of entertainment takes you a long way. But bear in mind that he has been creating his content for more than a decade, and that persistence along with the quality has made him land around a lot of money.
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