Spotify is no longer just competing to become the world’s biggest music platform. It is trying to become one of the most important habit platforms in global media.
Spotify finished 2025 with roughly 751 million monthly active users, 290 million paying subscribers, a 31 to 32% share of the global music streaming market, and around €2.2 billion ($2.5 billion) in operating profit, while quarterly revenue crossed €4.5 billion by Q4 2025. At this scale, the biggest challenge is no longer acquiring users. It is keeping them. Music streaming has become increasingly interchangeable, with Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, and Spotify all offering similar catalogs, playlists, and recommendation systems.
Sport changes this dynamic completely. Sports fandom is emotional, routine driven, and habit forming in a way music alone rarely is. Fans return constantly for matches, transfers, rivalries, analysis, creator content, and storylines. Someone who builds their NFL, Premier League, NBA, or Formula 1 routine around Spotify becomes far less likely to switch platforms. Daniel Ek (Founder, Chairman of Spotify) summarised the company’s thinking back in 2020 after acquiring The Ringer, saying: “What we really did with The Ringer, I think, is we bought the next ESPN.”
“THE NEXT ESPN”
Spotify’s ambition has never just been to become a music app. It wants to own the daily habits around sport, culture, and conversation.
How Spotify Turns Sport Into a 365-Day Business…
