Spotify Buys Sports-Talk App With Plans To Broaden Reach

For Spotify, which has expanded into podcasting to position itself as the world’s largest audio company—not just a music-streaming giant—the deal to acquire sports-talk app Locker Room and its maker Betty Labs is a bet that live audio will last well beyond the pandemic, reports The Wall Street Journal.

“Our creators have been asking for a long time to be able to be more interactive with fans,” Gustav Söderström, Spotify’s research and development chief, said in an interview. “The most effective way is to actually speak to them live.”

The Locker Room app is less than a year old. It launched in October of last year and has seen about 19,000 installs since then, according to app research firm Sensor Tower Inc. So far in March, it has seen about 8,000 installs, already representing 60% month-over-month growth from all of February.

Spotify plans to rebrand and relaunch the app with a broader focus across sports, music and pop culture. The company plans to keep it a stand-alone product, but users will be able to record live sessions and upload them to Spotify or podcasting platform Anchor and distribute them broadly. The streaming giant plans to tap its music and podcasting stars and users to facilitate programming with artists hosting album-listening parties or DJs spinning live sets before uploading them as playlists. Sportscasters and fans can weigh in around games, and podcasters could host live “ask me anything” sessions, or AMAs.

“How do you talk to many people at once has been a challenge, and this format has turned out to be very scalable,” Mr. Söderström said. “You can have a few people on stage, you can raise your hand in the audience and be unmuted and ask a question, unlike on Twitter where you have everyone screaming all at once.”

For now, the app and its content will remain free for all to access, though Spotify has been working on ways for creators to monetize their content, such as a la carte payments for podcasts.