Music Moneyball

Artists today have more ways to build a career around their music, but more complexity to navigate too. Jamie Dee Hart, founder of Hart & Songs, joins us to unpack the education gap behind the independent artist market: understanding what you own, collecting what you are owed and making decisions that protect the long-term value of your rights. From unclaimed royalties and incomplete registrat...

What happens when an ABBA icon and a private equity titan build a music investment company together? At Pophouse, the answer is a value-creation model that treats music catalogs not as passive royalty assets, but as the foundations for larger entertainment brands. In this episode, we’re joined by Natalia Fontecha, Partner and Head of Capital Raising & Investor Relations, and Per Sundin, Presid...

Music ABS is changing how serious capital moves through the music rights market. In this episode, Paul Sipio, Managing Director at Apollo, explains how music went from a niche alternative asset to something institutional investors can underwrite, structure and finance at scale. We discuss the catalysts behind that shift, from streaming growth and public market validation to the rise of scaled, div...

Decay curves have become one of the dominant frameworks used to value music catalogs, but how reliable are they really? Earlier this year, we brought together the UK music rights investment community in London for the first ever live recording of Music Moneyball. Standard Innovation CEO Tom Mullen sat down with Alex Bowler of Y Royalties and Sachin Saggar of RedBrick Advisors to unpack how valuati...

In this Music Fastball episode, we’re joined by Ryan Hamilton to explore two areas where catalog investors leave money on the table: deal optimization and commercial music usage across social platforms. First, we break down how the agreements and structures investors inherit can constrain catalog performance — and how taking a more active approach to catalog management can unlock greater commercia...

The catalog investment boom has largely been built around 5-10 year fund models. But does that structure actually fit the asset? In this episode, Josh Gruss, CEO of Round Hill Music, argues that some of the biggest returns in music come later than most investors expect, and that selling too early can leave a lot of value behind. We discuss how catalogs evolve over time, from streaming growth to sy...

This episode looks at an overlooked source of revenue leakage in music catalogs: recordings that aren’t set up to earn properly in the first place. We’re joined by Richard Hinkley from Repped Music, who has over 25 years of experience working at major record labels and now works with catalog owners and investors to identify and resolve operational gaps in recorded music. In this Music Fastball epi...

This episode gets into two of the things music funds care about most: cost of capital and multiples — and how both are shaped in practice. We break down the financial pillar of the Catalog Maturity Curve and explore how operational maturity — from reporting and visibility to financial infrastructure — directly impacts how capital providers price risk, value assets, and determine who can access the...

Brokers sit in the middle of every deal, seeing both sides of the market in real time. In this episode, Matt Herzfeld shares what he sees from hundreds of transactions each year — working directly between buyers and sellers to price, structure, and close deals. From that vantage point, he explains where the real activity sits today, including how much of the market is made up of smaller, under-the...

Deals don’t usually fail because of price. They fail because the process breaks down. In Part 1 of our conversation with Cliff Fluet, we asked a simple but critical question: what are you actually buying in a catalog deal? In Part 2, we turn to the next challenge: how funds build a process that allows them to evaluate and close catalog deals consistently. As more capital flows into music rights, i...

Most music catalog deals start with the price — but they’re ultimately won or lost on the rights. In this two-part Fastball, we’re joined by Cliff Fluet (Partner at Lewis Silkin) to explore the legal side of catalog operations and how it impacts where funds sit on the Catalog Maturity Curve — how clearly rights, obligations and key dates are understood and managed. Part 1 focuses on a deceptively...

Most music investors focus on hit songs. Cutting Edge Group built a billion-dollar business around the music inside film and television instead. In this episode, CEO Philip Moross and COO Tara Finegan explain how media music really works as an asset class — from the copyright structures that make it more defensible than commercial catalogs, to the performance royalties that flow every time a film...

Cynthia Katz has a front-row seat to a huge volume of catalog deals. In this episode, we ask her what the smartest buyers are doing differently, and where the market goes next. We get into the shift to institutional-grade diligence, why assets are now being underwritten with the next transaction in mind, and how data, structure and operational capability are separating the platforms that can scale...

There’s a lot of noise around data in music rights. Very little of it helps you decide what to do on a Monday morning. We recently introduced the Catalog Maturity Curve to benchmark what “good” looks like for music funds. In this Fastball we take the first driver of maturity, Data & Infrastructure, and make it practical. This is where most teams start to feel the strain. More catalogs, more st...

What happens when institutional capital meets creative execution? In this episode of Music Moneyball, we’re joined by Evan Bogart, Founder and CEO of Seeker Music, and Ciaran Mulligan, CIO at M&G Life, to explore how their partnership bridges two worlds to build a modern music investment platform. Evan and Ciaran share how Seeker combines frontline creative strategy with institutional investme...

Music catalog valuation lives or dies on data quality. In this episode of Music Fastball, we’re joined by valuation expert Alaister Moughan, who talks through the messy reality of music royalty data and why headline revenue numbers can be misleading when valuing catalogs. We also dig into what happens after the deal. As institutional standards rise, funds are being judged not just on valuation at...

Institutional investors are changing how music rights are evaluated. In this episode of Music Moneyball, Brian Richards, Founder and Managing Partner of Artisan, joins us to explain what that shift looks like in practice, from pricing and capital structure to execution and exits. Brian sits at the centre of the catalog market, advising funds, labels, and platforms on capital raising, portfolio sal...

The bar has moved in music rights investing. As institutional capital continues to scale into the asset class, funds are being judged less on what they buy and more on how portfolios are run. Operating maturity is no longer a nice-to-have. It’s being priced into outcomes. In our first Music Fastball episode, we introduce the Catalog Maturity Curve — a new operating benchmark for music investment f...

What separates enduring music rights companies from the rest? In this episode of Music Moneyball, we’re joined by Golnar Khosrowshahi, Founder and CEO of Reservoir, to explore how a disciplined, data-led approach has shaped one of the most respected independent music companies in the world. Golnar reflects on the deals that shaped Reservoir’s evolution, from TVT to Tommy Boy, and how they reinforc...

How do you take an artist whose prime was nearly a century ago and make them feel culturally relevant today? In this festive Music Moneyball special, Adam Lowenberg (CMO, Primary Wave) breaks down the playbook for reactivating legacy catalogs, using Bing Crosby as the case study. We cover how Primary Wave builds multi-year marketing plans with estates, turns sexasonal spikes into long-term growth,...

The music industry is standing at a crossroads where AI will either become the biggest new revenue stream in its history or trigger the largest transfer of value away from rights holders and into AI platforms. In this episode, we sit down with entrepreneur and technologist Benji Rogers (Sureel AI, Lark42) to unpack what that means for music investors and catalog buyers. Benji argues that most fund...

The smarter money in music is quietly moving into the overlooked layers of the market, where only a few operators have the infrastructure to compete. In this episode, we sit down with Tom Tyler, CEO and co-founder of Rezonate Music Rights, to unpack how he and co-founder and hit producer Cam Blackwood are building one of the most differentiated platforms in the space. Drawing on Tom’s two decades...

The next wave of returns in music won’t come from buying bigger catalogs, but from buying smarter. In this episode, we sit down with Michael Poster, Partner and Chair of Music Acquisitions & Financing at Michelman & Robinson, to unpack how the market has broadened and matured, why “alternative” strategies aren’t alternative anymore, and how smart buyers are quietly creating value through s...

At Music Moneyball, we believe value doesn’t come from just owning a catalog—it comes from how well you run it. In Episode 2, we sit down with Henry Marsden (Founder, Fix Music) to unpack why operational discipline and clean data are the real edge in music rights. Henry’s seen this from every angle—touring as a musician with Elton John, building and selling an indie publisher, managing iconic cata...

Is catalog value about owning the biggest hits, or knowing how to operate the rights you buy? Sachin Saggar (RedBrick Advisors) joins Emma Griffiths, Tom Mullen, and Sam Morey (Standard Innovation) to break down how the smartest buyers value music catalogs today—what drives premiums, where hidden basis points live, and why better data and infrastructure are the edge. Plus: AI’s real impact and the...