Spotify Paid $250 Million for The Ringer

Spotify paid $250 million for The Ringer -- $200 million upfront and $50 million later, Lucas Shaw of Bloomberg reports. The sale closed last week and the price had been undisclosed until now.

Another interesting tidbit from the story: Simmons was the biggest shareholder, and HBO (whose parent company is now AT&T) owned 10 percent of The Ringer. We did not previously know how much of the brand was owned by HBO.

The story closed: "The deal requires Simmons to keep working at Spotify for some time, and also includes protections to ensure Spotify doesn’t cut much of his staff."

"Some time" and "much of his staff" are still relatively unspecific terms, but for the time being it is apparent that Simmons and The Ringer will be a big part of Spotify's strategy to corner the podcast market for the foreseeable future.