The Real Winners of the Taylor Swift Masters Mega-Deal

Summary

The Real Winners of the Taylor Swift Masters Mega-Deal

Podcast: The Town with Matthew Belloni
Host: The Ringer
Episode Release Date: June 2, 2025
Guest: Lucas Shaw, Bloomberg
Topic: Taylor Swift's acquisition of her master recordings and its broader implications on the music industry.

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1. Introduction and Background

The episode delves into Taylor Swift's monumental achievement of reclaiming her master recordings—a saga that has spanned over six years and involved major players in the music industry, including Scooter Braun, Scott Borchetta, and Shamrock Capital.

Matt Belloni opens the discussion by highlighting the significance of Swift's accomplishment:

"Taylor Swift has bought back her master recordings. I know we were all worried about her, but good for her." (00:35)

2. Overview of the Deal

Lucas Shaw provides a breakdown of the intricate deal, explaining how each party acted in their financial interests:

"Taylor brilliantly leveraged the sale of her life's work. She called it. To reposition herself as the ultimate victim, which helped boost her sales, created an entirely new category of music sales called RE Records." (05:14)

The journey began with Swift's initial conflict with Scooter Braun over the ownership of her first six albums under Big Machine Records. Her strategic move to re-record her albums diminished the value of the originals, thereby increasing the demand and financial viability of her new versions.

3. Financial Implications

The conversation shifts to the financial aspects of the deal, with Shaw and Horbaugh analyzing the monetary flow:

"Billboard had an estimate. They said that the six albums and two live albums that she recorded when she was on Big Machine generated roughly $60 million a year on average from 2022 to 2024." (12:31)

Given that Shamrock Capital sold the catalog to Swift for an estimated $360 million—as reported by Billboard—the distribution of profits ensures that Shamrock retains a substantial annual profit from these assets. Shaw estimates:

"She's now sitting on a full catalog that is probably worth at least a billion dollars." (14:05)

4. Impact on the Music Industry

Swift's maneuver has set a precedent in the industry, altering the dynamics between artists and record labels. The re-recording strategy has instilled fear among labels, prompting them to reconsider their own contracts and ownership models.

"The music industry has sort of bent over backwards to reorient itself into the Taylor Swift model because now she's done this rerecord so successfully. All these labels are terrified that big artists could do it themselves." (15:26)

This shift emphasizes artist empowerment, making it increasingly feasible for musicians to negotiate ownership of their work.

5. Participants and Their Roles

• Taylor Swift: Central figure successfully reclaiming her masters, enhancing her control and financial benefits from her music.

  "All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me. All of my music videos, all the concert films, all the album art and photography, the unreleased songs, the memories, the magic, the madness, every single era, my entire life's work." (04:05)

• Scott Borchetta: Founder of Big Machine Records, initially sold the catalog to Scooter Braun, ensuring he was compensated for Taylor's work.

• Scooter Braun: Acquired the catalog from Borchetta, later sold it to Shamrock Capital, inadvertently enabling Swift to reacquire her masters.

  "He was peddling that story to a lot of outlets, music business worldwide, a very reputable outlet. But they went with that." (07:44)

• Shamrock Capital: Private equity firm that owned the catalog before selling it back to Swift. Despite not being traditionally seen as antagonistic, they benefited financially from the deal.

  "They probably are very happy. People don't know Shamrock is a very talent-friendly private equity firm." (10:13)

6. Future Implications and Legacy

Shaw posits that Swift's catalog will continue to appreciate, potentially surpassing legendary catalogs like The Beatles or Bruce Springsteen due to ongoing revenue from streaming and performances.

"Hers will be so much bigger because just by the law of inflation." (22:03)

Additionally, Swift's success fosters a new era where artists are more informed and empowered to negotiate ownership, signaling a transformative shift in the music business landscape.

"Artists do typically own and control if they can." (16:18)

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Notable Quotes

• Lucas Shaw:

  "Every. Everyone won. That's the remarkable thing is it's seen as this big fight and there's this great injustice and... Taylor just her ability to control the narrative on all this stuff is really remarkable." (05:54)

• Craig Horbaugh:

  "She could bury these. She could bury the Taylor's versions. And they can be what people always thought the rerecords were going to be, which is just some like nice little side project for crazy super fans." (14:34)

• Matt Belloni:

  "I really get to say these words she wrote on her website. All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me." (04:05)

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Conclusion

Taylor Swift's acquisition of her master recordings stands as a landmark event in the music industry, redefining artist-label relationships and empowering musicians to reclaim ownership of their creative works. The episode with Lucas Shaw offers an in-depth analysis of the financial mechanics and broader implications, illustrating how Swift not only secured her legacy but also transformed industry standards for future generations of artists.

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[Timestamps correspond to the transcript provided and are included in parentheses for reference.]

Transcript

[Matt Belloni]

If you care about Hollywood, and I assume you do, if you're listening to the Town, you should really be getting the whole story about Hollywood.

[Craig Horbaugh]

That's what you get with Puck.

[Matt Belloni]

I'm a founding partner Puck and I write a newsletter called what I'm Hearing. It's got exclusive news for insiders and analysis of the biggest stories. Puck has a bunch of great journalists. We just hired Kim Masters who also covers Hollywood from the inside, plus media, sports, fashion, politics and finance. It's a must have for plugged in people. Fans of the Town get a discount on the description page of this episode or at Puck News thetown. Go further into Hollywood by becoming a Puck member today.

[Craig Horbaugh]

This episode of the Town is brought to you by MAX Presenting Hacks for your Emmy consideration. Starring Gene Smart and Hannah Einbinder, the new season picks up with Deborah Vance's late night show finally in production and Ava Daniels stepping in as head writer. To Deborah's dismay, their ever complicated relationship is pushed to new limits as they clash over creative direction and and get entangled in blackmail and betrayal. Don't miss the series, Slate says has never been better. Emmy eligible for Outstanding Comedy Series and all other categories now streaming on max. This episode is brought to you by Netflix. Presenting the Diplomat from writer and creator Deborah Kahn. Keri Russell and Rufus Sewell return with Allison Janney joining in the explosive second season as US Ambassador Kate Wyler navigates high stakes diplomacy and and a fraught marriage in search of the truth. The Guardian lauds the Diplomat a masterclass in storytelling and Indiewire hails it one of the best shows of the year for your Emmy consideration. It is Monday, June 2nd. Some pretty big music news broke on Friday. Taylor Swift has bought back her master recordings. I know we were all worried about her, but good for her. We all know that this has been her goal for years now. If you don't remember six years ago, Taylor's first six albums of music were sold by Big Machine Records, the label that discovered her to Taylor's nemesis, Scooter Braun once represented her arch enemy Kanye West. Taylor wasn't very happy about that, so she went nuclear on Scooter. She unleashed her fans against him. Craig still has a couple burner accounts just posting Scooter memes. Then Taylor set up the greatest spite store in the history of Hollywood. She re recorded those albums one by one and encouraged her fans and the big streaming services to play the Taylor's versions of not the originals, thus making the original catalog much less valuable. In the process, Taylor really reignited her Career, releasing five new albums, embarking on the most successful tour of all time. All the things we know. Scooter didn't love being the Internet's villain. So in 2020, he flipped the Swift portion of the Big Machine catalog to Shamrock Capital, an LA based private equity firm. There's still some dispute about whether Taylor had a chance to buy them herself first and passed on it. And like most private equity firm investors, they sat on it for a few years. Shamrock made some money and appreciated in value. Now they've flipped it again, this time back to Taylor, who got to announce this shrewd financial transaction as if it were an act of artistic expression. I really get to say these words she wrote on her website. All of the music I've ever made now belongs to me. All of my music videos, all the concert films, all of the album art and photography, the unreleased songs, the memories, the magic, the madness, every single era, my entire life's work. Like I said, good for her and good for us because Lucas Shaw is here to break down the deal. Who got what, why it took so long and what the ultimate legacy is of this whole six year saga today is Taylor Swift and her masters. How she finally said, you belong with me. From the ringer and Puck. I'm Matt Belleni and this is the. All right, we are here with Lucas Shaw from Bloomberg. Welcome back, Lucas. Good to see you.

[Lucas Shaw]

Likewise. Did you go to. No, no, I'm not gonna do Dodgery.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah, I noticed you were at the game. You were at all the games, right?

[Lucas Shaw]

No, I just went Saturday. I went to the 18:2,1.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, that's fun. Yeah, yeah. Friday night, amazing game Saturday, even better game Sunday, pretty much a bummer game.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Saturday was worth sending memes to all of my Yankees friends. Including the new Aaron Judge campaign for Polo Cologne. Are you aware of this?

[Lucas Shaw]

I missed that one.

[Craig Horbaugh]

He's the new spokesperson for Polo Cologne. Every high school kid's dream cologne. And there's some embarrassing photos of him, which I enjoyed. All right, so we gotta get into this Taylor Swift deal because you had a take that I enjoyed, which was that despite all the hoopla and all the marketing and everything that that has surrounded this saga for six years and counting, everyone involved here has acted pretty much as you might expect them to act. And by that I mean financially motivated. Taylor brilliantly leveraged the sale of her life's work. She called it. To reposition herself as the ultimate victim, which helped boost her sales, created an entirely new category of music sales called RE Records. Scott Borchetta who owns Big Machine, he discovered Taylor and rightfully thought he should get paid. So when she left for umg, he sold the catalog to someone and made.

[Lucas Shaw]

A bunch of money.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah, he sold the catalog to someone who gave him a bunch of money and had the biggest price. Scooter Braun bought it, recognized the value, he milked the catalog for a few years and then sold it himself to a private equity firm. And then the private equity firm did the same thing that they always do, which is they sat on the asset for a few years at a appreciated, they milked some money out of it and then they sold it, which now allows Taylor to get it back and not only exploit this asset for decades to come, but further the narrative of herself as a victim who has overcome all of these enemies perceived in real and triumphed. And everybody wins. Literally everyone wins here.

[Lucas Shaw]

Every. Everyone won. That's the remarkable thing is it's seen as this big fight and there's this great injustice and. And you're right, I mean, you're paraphrasing me, but it was like everybody did what you would rationally expect them to do. One, the coverage of this whole saga reinforces how few people actually understand the music business because everyone mostly just like took whatever Taylor said and ran with it. But also Taylor just her ability to control the narrative on all this stuff is really remarkable.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Well, she has untold hundreds of millions of followers and she's very savvy about how she, she communicates with them. It doesn't surprise me.

[Lucas Shaw]

No, I'm not surprised. It's just like even with this announcement, it got portrayed as though like, oh, I finally got a chance to do it. Someone, finally. This is not the first opportunity she's had to buy.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Well, so do you believe that Music Business Worldwide report that Scooter offered her her catalog. They could not come to terms and then he sold it. She claimed that it was sold out from under her for the second time and yada yada.

[Lucas Shaw]

Right. But the first time was sort of. So the first time when Scott Borchetta sold Big Machine. It is true that Scott Borchetta did not want to sell Taylor Swift, just her albums. He would have sold her Big Machine. She did not want Big Machine.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Right. There's a bunch of other artists on that, out on that label and stuff that she wouldn't want.

[Lucas Shaw]

But if he had only sold Taylor's work, then the rest of Big Machine becomes way less interesting and lucrative. He's probably not going to sell it, so you can understand why he didn't want to do that.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

And then I think in this, the second situation where Scooter was supposedly, according to that MBW article, offered to sell it to her. I am sure that he offered to sell it to her.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, you are? I've always been quite. Because I don't believe a word that comes out of his mouth. He was peddling that story to a lot of outlets, music business worldwide, a very reputable outlet. But they went with that. And I have never been sure about that.

[Lucas Shaw]

Just to clarify, we don't know the terms. We don't know like she said, like her version of it was that, you know, she would have had to sign some non disparagement NDA before even getting into the negotiations. Depending on who you look at, like having to sign an NDA before you look at the books is like pretty common practice. So I don't know that that was all that bad.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah, but where is her leverage in this equation? Her leverage is her, is in her ability to communicate.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah, totally. So maybe Scooter. Yeah, there's a world in which Scooter made the offer just to get her to sign that so that she couldn't disparage him anymore. Who knows?

[Craig Horbaugh]

That's the real value for him. He just got destroyed by her.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah. But I do, I think she's probably had opportunities to buy it before, but in this case, when she didn't get it the first time she did the rerecord, she made lots of new music. She went on this big global tour. She finally got home a few months ago and said, okay, now not only do I have a lot more money but but it's time. I'm going to go and get it back. Because Shamrock was happy to sell it to her as long as they got a reasonable deal. And they probably didn't try, you know, they didn't push for the maximum money. Because getting Taylor Swift to say you're cool is great when you're a firm that buys catalog from artists.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Well, and a source at Shamrock a few years ago communicated to me some of the hate mail that they receive regularly from the Taylor Swift fans. And it's not fun to be the big faceless owner of this artist's catalog who is constantly talking about how her music has been stolen and exploited without her consent. They were probably very happy. I mean, people don't know Shamrock is a very talent or considered a very talent friendly private equity firm. It goes all the way back to. It was originally Roy E. Disney's personal investment. The Disney family still Has a big stake in Shamrock and it is LA based. They're in Westwood. They invest in a bunch of artist oriented media entertainment companies and it has big ties to Disney. They didn't enjoy being the big faceless evil entity here even though we all know they happily got into this arrangement by buying these masters. But it probably is a nice lift off of their shoulders here.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah. I mean I'll just say that within 10 minutes of me emailing them to say I was going to write something on this subject, I never heard back from them. I heard from Taylor's people within 10 minutes of my emailing Shamrock.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, that's funny. Did you get a Tree Pain email?

[Lucas Shaw]

Tree Pain and I communicated.

[Craig Horbaugh]

We'll just leave it at that. That's good. She's very elusive. I've only, I've only received it a couple times and it's, it's, it's always when you have something, when you got something really real and you're about to run it, she will appear from, from nowhere. It's like she conjures herself.

[Lucas Shaw]

You know, I've known Tree for a long time. She is very good at what she does.

[Craig Horbaugh]

She is. Let's talk about the deal. Can we talk about this deal here? Because there has been some widely divergent reporting here about the money involved. The New York Post reported that the deal was worth 600 million to 1 billion. A big range there. You described this as one person familiar with the arrangement put the price at the low end of that range.

[Lucas Shaw]

So let's say 6 to 6 to 7.

[Craig Horbaugh]

6 to 7. Now billboard said it was only 360 million, which is about what Scooter Braun sold them to Shamrock for. Dawn Passman, her lawyer definitely will not tell me the exact number. Who is right here.

[Lucas Shaw]

I find it very hard to believe that they sold it for what they bought it for. For that has all the, all the hallmarks of sort of the spin machine pushing that out because you don't want it out there that you know, that.

[Craig Horbaugh]

You made money on Taylor.

[Lucas Shaw]

Well, Shamrock doesn't want it out there that they made running on Taylor. But also Taylor has structured again this narrative such that isn't she a genius for waiting it out? And basically there's this perception that because of the rerecords that she devalued her catalog.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

And that's like it's not really clear that that's true.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Well, everybody was playing the Taylor's versions. Spotify and Apple both pushed the Taylor's versions. So it had to impact them A.

[Lucas Shaw]

Little bit, but because of. Because her interest in her in general exploded like the listenership.

[Craig Horbaugh]

But that was on her. She did that.

[Unnamed Producer]

She, she.

[Craig Horbaugh]

It was a benefit.

[Lucas Shaw]

This is why everyone won, because. Because the amount that people are streaming those first years few albums is prop. Is much higher than it would have been had we not gone through this whole saga.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. Billboard had an estimate. They said that the six albums and two live albums that she recorded when she was on Big machine generated roughly $60 million a year on average from 2022 to 2024, according to data and Billboard's estimates.

[Lucas Shaw]

And so that means that you add that just to the 360 the shamrock gets back and they.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Well, they only get about half that because distribution, marketing, and then you have royalty payments that go to Taylor herself based on her other rights in that music, that would get about 50% of the revenue. And that leaves Shamrock with about $30 million a year in profit, which, seeing.

[Lucas Shaw]

As they bought it In I believe 2020, that means that they've already made, you know, another hundred plus million dollars off of that music.

[Craig Horbaugh]

So they can get out here and feel good about themselves and say to their investors, we made our nut on Taylor. Like it's worth it for us to give this back to her.

[Lucas Shaw]

So I think this, the 600 to a billion comes from earlier in the process when kind of not long after Taylor reached out to them. That was what they thought they could get. That was what they were telling people that they could get. Now if you asked most industry experts to evaluate like they would say, I think we had someone who told us that they thought it was worth about $700 million.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Her whole catalog from Big Machine.

[Lucas Shaw]

Correct.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I wonder if it is more valuable now that it is aligned with the rest of her catalog and all the other stuff that she has done since.

[Lucas Shaw]

Well, that's the other question. Now that she owns all of it, which one does she push?

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah, I don't know. I think. I mean, according to my Taylor Swift source, which is Nathan at the Ringer, there are some Taylor's versions that are not as good as the originals when.

[Lucas Shaw]

It comes to evaluating the music. I'm going to let someone else.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Right, exactly. But the point is it can't hurt to own both.

[Lucas Shaw]

She's now sitting on a full catalog that is probably worth at least a billion dollars.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I mean, there's an argument to be made that because she owns both, one will fall away and become worthless. Whereas if they were owned by two different entities that were essentially competing with each other, that the overall money exploited from these two catalogs would be greater.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yes.

[Craig Horbaugh]

See what I'm getting at?

[Lucas Shaw]

You could make that idea.

[Craig Horbaugh]

She could bury these. She could bury the Taylor's versions.

[Lucas Shaw]

She could. And they can be what people always thought the rerecords were going to be, which is just some like nice little side project for crazy super fans.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. How did the music industry get that so wrong?

[Lucas Shaw]

Well, because in their defense, RE Records had never mattered to anyone.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. It never happened before.

[Lucas Shaw]

Nobody went out of their way to like listen to the new version, but they, they failed to see this just miraculous marketing campaign that, that Taylor was orchestrating and what that would mean for, for the RE record.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. And that gets to the legacy here. Because what's fascinating is that this whole saga and the six years of back and forth and marketing and everything, the music industry has sort of bent over backwards to recomport itself into the Taylor Swift model because now she's done this rerecord so successfully. All these labels are terrified that big artists could do it themselves. So they're not even really fighting for ownership of the masters.

[Lucas Shaw]

No, that's. That's not why.

[Craig Horbaugh]

That's not why.

[Lucas Shaw]

No. This started. This is, this is not a Taylor thing.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I think she's been a factor.

[Lucas Shaw]

She may be a factor. But the reason that artists now can demand ownership arts easier is because they usually blow up in some way before they get signed and because they're savvier and they know to ask.

[Craig Horbaugh]

People didn't know before. The music industry has been fighting with artists for 50, 70 years.

[Lucas Shaw]

They are. But usually they didn't have the leverage. Now usually you get signed after you have a song go viral on TikTok or on.

[Craig Horbaugh]

And now there are so many different ways to distribute your music that the labels have less leverage.

[Lucas Shaw]

The labels are less powerful than they used to be because there's so many independent distributors. And artists tend to have a little more leverage entering the negotiation. And so there are still people on the traditional deal where the label owns everything. But that's, that's why this whole saga was so interesting is Taylor signed her initial deal when artist ownership was really rare. Right. Like most people did what Taylor did. You signed a multi album with a label. Right. And the. And the label controlled everything. She's now lived through this whole era of artist and creative empowerment that we've seen in sports, we've seen in music. And now artists do typically own and control if they can.

[Craig Horbaugh]

But if I'm an artist, I'm coming up like I think the Taylor Swift situation would be something that I would know about and I would care to ask about. And maybe that didn't exist before all of this fight.

[Lucas Shaw]

Well, but to your point, like there was the Prince situation throughout the 90s, and so you, if you were an artist who came up in like 2000s, you were probably as Taylor Swift did. Like, she was probably loosely aware that Prince got in this big fight with his record label.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I wish Taylor would have changed her name to a symbol. Would've been amazing. She's got a great logo. The logo on her stationary would have been call herself T.S.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah, these fights will not happen that much anymore, I don't think.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Interesting. Yeah, you, you noted that like Morgan Wallen, he's got the number one album right now. That is an exclusive license to umg, Right.

[Lucas Shaw]

Olivia Rodrigo, exclusive license to umg. Bad Bunny is, I mean, Bad Bunny's through Remus Entertainment, which is his manager's company, but like Sony doesn't own his music. So there are some people who were still the old school.

[Craig Horbaugh]

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[Matt Belloni]

Presenting the Day of the Jackal for your Emmy consideration, Eddie Redmayne and Lashana lynch star in the original drama series Variety calls an exhilarating thriller. The series follows a lone assassin and an intelligence officer in a cat and mouse chase across Europe. The Day of the Jackal is streaming.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Now only on Peacock. And how does the financial calculus change when the labels don't own the music? Like, what is the label doing? Why are they, why do they exist?

[Lucas Shaw]

Right. Because the label, the, the catalog has always been the super lucrative part of the label business. And if they don't own the catalog, but what ends up happening is they end up buying back the catalogs. Yeah. There are a lot of questions about what this new dynamic between artists and label mean for these labels long term because they, they, they just don't own a lot of their most important new work. They have exclusive licenses that last 10, 15 years.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

Can I ask you a question?

[Matt Belloni]

Sure.

[Lucas Shaw]

Because you, you know how relationships between big companies and talent work over time. Taylor has said in her public statements that she and she alone bought the catalogs. Right. And so let's say, let's even take the low end of this. $360 million. Do you think that Taylor Swift wrote a check for $360 million?

[Craig Horbaugh]

Some of the reporting I've seen said it was a cash deal. My guess on this is that there is probably some money behind her that someone came in. Her dad, Scott Swift, has lots of relationships in the financial community. He's a former investment banker. My guess is that she brought in some money or they worked out a financing arrangement where she did not have to write a $500 million check because she's rich. She's a billionaire now, but I don't think she's that rich. And there's no need.

[Lucas Shaw]

And even if you. Well, no, that's the second part. Even if you are that rich, you don't need to do it. You can just have someone put up the money and you can pay them over time.

[Craig Horbaugh]

And as everything in Taylor Swift world, you agree when you get involved that you will never speak of it to anyone.

[Lucas Shaw]

Right.

[Craig Horbaugh]

And that the entire narrative will be Taylor bought these masters. Even if you're putting up the majority of the money, you get to be involved in Taylor Swift world, but you can never tell anyone, especially not people like you. So that is my guess. I am betting that she has financial partners or some kind of a loan against her future revenue that made this happen. You should call Don Passman. He'll be very polite to you for 20 minutes and tell you nothing. Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

I think I met. I met his son the other day.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, very nice guy. Also an entertainment lawyer. Danny. Good guy. So getting back to this, let's say Taylor continues on this trajectory and she. Her career, I don't wanna say atrophies, but she has hit her peak. And she goes for the next 20, 30 years with albums, but never as popular as she is right now. What do you think her ultimate catalog value is going to be vis a vis some of these other catalogs that have sold, like Beatles, Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, they've all sold portions of their catalogs or the whole thing. And what do you think Taylor's will match up to them as well?

[Lucas Shaw]

Hers will be so much bigger because just by the law of inflation.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

Like if she's not. If she's. Because she's not going to sell it anytime soon. Right. She's not going to. She's not going to have gone through this whole process and turn around in five years and do it Most of the artists who sell their catalog either do so because they need money, which was the whole Bieber thing. She's not in that situation.

[Craig Horbaugh]

How dare you. How dare you suggest Justin Bieber needs money.

[Lucas Shaw]

I should say allegedly needs money, so that I do not.

[Craig Horbaugh]

His wife's a billionaire. Now. She's not a billionaire, but her company did sell for a billion. Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

Or estate planning. That was where a lot of the, like, Dylan, Springsteen stuff came up.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. They don't want their family to have to deal with administrators and all the other.

[Lucas Shaw]

So she's not going to be in either of those situations anytime soon.

[Craig Horbaugh]

So we're not.

[Lucas Shaw]

We're. She's not selling this thing for 30, 40 years. And by that point just, you know, unless something really crazy happens with the global economy, which I can't rule out, the value of all this stuff should, at a minimum, you know, double.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. And it will end up going to the Taylor Travis super baby that someday will come along and have to deal with her billions of dollars of music assets.

[Lucas Shaw]

So I said it earlier. I think. I think she's sitting on something that even today is probably worth more than any of that just because of. It's more current. So let's say Today it's worth 750 to a billion dollars.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yep.

[Lucas Shaw]

Then it could, you know, billion. Five more. I don't know.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I think more.

[Lucas Shaw]

Yeah. Maybe two more.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I mean, she's not done. She's 35 years old, but it depends on how she spends the next 10 to 15 years. But.

[Lucas Shaw]

Well, that's the. She's already, you know, she's already defied a little bit of the gravity that usually comes with pop stars where it seems like, you know, she had a Peak with 1989, in her late 20s, and then she seemed to be coming, coming back down, and then this thing brought her back up to even higher level than she was before.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, yeah. Way higher.

[Lucas Shaw]

Now she's in her mid-30s. Like, what is the next act? Is she finally going to take a break? Is she, you know, does she want to have kids?

[Craig Horbaugh]

All things we do not need to discuss here.

[Lucas Shaw]

No.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Give me your rankings of top five. Taylor's number one on who came out the best here. Who are. Who's two through five?

[Lucas Shaw]

I'm going to go Borchetta two. I think because he got his money, he wasn't the target, ultimately, of the ire. He, like, gets the. He, like, sold at the right time.

[Craig Horbaugh]

And gets out, he can show his face at music events. Yeah.

[Lucas Shaw]

So I guess the other Three candidates would be what? Scooter, Shamrock, and umg. Like, Lucien. Yeah, I'm going to go Lucien three. Because even though the deal for Universal is not great, Right. Like, Taylor gets most of the money.

[Craig Horbaugh]

It's better than not being in business with her.

[Lucas Shaw]

It's better than not being in business with her. And he got Taylor. Right. As they were going public.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yes.

[Lucas Shaw]

And like.

[Craig Horbaugh]

And they do her publishing, too.

[Lucas Shaw]

Right. You could. Even now that I think about it, you could even argue UMG is. Is too. But whatever. Scott. Scott got the personal money, so I'll take that. Shamrock and Scooter. I mean, the tricky part with ranking Scooter and all of this is like, five. Financially, he could have made out the best of other than what anyone but Taylor. But reputationally and in terms of just, like, hassle for him because of how many people on the Internet hate him now, he probably comes in fifth, but.

[Craig Horbaugh]

I'll agree with that. Yeah, I'll agree with that. And I'll put Travis in there as, like, hovering over all of it, as is the real beneficiary. All right, thank you, Lucas.

[Lucas Shaw]

Thanks, Matt.

[Craig Horbaugh]

We're back with the call sheet. Craig. Oof. This is a. This is a tough one. I know it's become cliche to talk about the NBA and their television ratings, but, man, the finals, Indiana versus Oklahoma City. This is going to be a rough one.

[Unnamed Producer]

Yeah, it sucks because this was one of the best NBA playoffs in recent memory, and it's ending with one of the least sexy finals.

[Craig Horbaugh]

It's the first time two markets outside of the top 10 will face each other. Well, at least since 1971, when the Finals didn't even air live. Indianapolis is the 25th biggest US media market, and Oklahoma City is the 47th biggest media market, and it doesn't have any marquee talent. Yeah, that's the big thing. Like, you can have small market teams.

[Unnamed Producer]

Totally.

[Craig Horbaugh]

As long as there are big stars that everyone who likes basketball cares about.

[Unnamed Producer]

Yeah. People listening will probably say, the MVP of the league is in this finals, which I don't know if you could even name him. He's on the Thunder. Do you know who the MPVP is?

[Craig Horbaugh]

SGA or whatever his name is?

[Unnamed Producer]

Yeah, yeah. Shay Gilders Alexander is the mvp. Tyrese Halliburton's great on. On the Pacers, but those guys, regardless of him being the MVP, he is not one of the top 10 most popular players in the league are the faces of the league yet. He's not.

[Craig Horbaugh]

No. It's sad. I mean, the NBA. They need those stars to make it to the finals in order for people to care and they need the stars on the sideline.

[Unnamed Producer]

It's a huge bummer for all the Kylie Timmy fans out there that they're not going to be there.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Timmy was a much. I'm, I'm glad this stopped. I think we were going to a dark place with him. He, he thinks he's Jack Nicholson in the 80s. It's not, not great.

[Unnamed Producer]

I was enjoying it. I thought it was great. I had a blast.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Really. The jumpsuit, the Knicks jumpsuit, that was okay with you?

[Unnamed Producer]

I thought it was really fun. It spiced up the Eastern Conference Finals. Ben Stiller was there. Larry David was there. David Zaslav was there. It was great.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah, I know all the, all our favorites. Yeah. The ratings for the Eastern Conference Finals were up, but the ratings for the Western Conference Finals, which did not have those celebrities and those stars because the Lakers were out of it and the, and the, you know, the warriors were out of it were down.

[Unnamed Producer]

And it was just, it was Minnesota and Oklahoma City and it was not a close series.

[Craig Horbaugh]

The question is how much down. So my prediction. So last year the average was 11.3 million people watched the final between Boston and Dallas, and that was the average across five games. Typically, the ratings go up if there's a game six and seven. They didn't have that. Now, that was actually not the lowest ever. The lowest ever was 2020, which averaged 7.5, but that was the bubble year. 2021 rebounded to 9.9 and then 23 rebounded even more. My prediction is that this year will not only be below last year. I think we are going to have trouble scraping 10 million viewers if this doesn't go six or seven games. The NBA and ABC risks this Finals not getting to an average of 10 million people. So it'll, my prediction is it will, it'll be like right around 10 million, but it will certainly be less than the 11.3 million that watched last year.

[Unnamed Producer]

Which right around 10 million would basically be the second lowest NBA Finals ever. Not including the bubble year.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Including the bubble year, no.

[Unnamed Producer]

Cause 10, if it was 10, it would be above the bubble year and above that buck.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Oh, right. 9.9 was the 2021.

[Unnamed Producer]

Yeah, I think that's probably the comp. It's two teams, none with a major, major star, although they had Giannis in 2021. I think the issue here is going to be. I, I, I'm not particularly sure this is going to be a close series. I mean, the Pacers have, have definitely overperformed, but the spread in the, in the first game is nine and a half. These games are not expected to be close.

[Craig Horbaugh]

OKC is considered one of the best teams of all time, even though they don't have stars.

[Unnamed Producer]

Yeah. Metrically, they're supposed to be very, very good. They're very young, but they're very good. Yeah. If this is, you know, three one heading into game five, this could be a disaster.

[Craig Horbaugh]

Yeah. All right, so we'll see. So my prediction is around 10 million. We'll see how that holds up. All right. That's the show for today. I want to thank my guest, Lucas Shaw, producer Craig Horbeck, editor Jesse Lopez. I want to thank Timothee Chalamet's Knicks jumpsuit. And I want to thank you. We'll see you a couple more times this week.