In Universal Music Group's 2025 annual report, the bonus of its chairman and chief executive, Sir Lucian Grainge, depends in part on three strategic areas. One of them is to "increase engagement with superfans through direct-to-consumer offerings." The other two are the model the company calls Streaming 2.0 and its presence in high-growth markets.
That block is worth 30% of the annual bonus. For 2025, the board gave the top score on the scale for that block: 200%. Among the highlights the report uses to justify the assessment, under high-growth markets, is topping Spotify's year-end chart in Brazil, with the duo Henrique & Juliano.
When a board puts a goal into the bonus of the person running the company, it is saying where it wants to see results. The direct relationship with the fan made that list.
What each label is building
Universal. The same report says the base of fans registered to receive marketing from the company's websites has passed 200 million people, and refers to it as its "owned" audience. The company runs more than 1,600 of its own artist and label stores. Direct sales already account for 23% of its physical music sales. With Amazon, Spotify and YouTube, Universal signed the agreements it calls Streaming 2.0. They provide for premium subscription tiers for superfans. The company has also invested in Stationhead, a fan engagement platform.
Sony. In its June 2025 investor presentation, the music division showed Fansifter, a fan segmentation tool it bought in 2024, with the caption "First Party Fan Data Platform" and, in the footer, the note that the tools on the slide are fully owned (we told that story here). In the same presentation, Sony says it is number 1 in Latin America on the Spotify charts, with an average of 40.4 tracks a week in the region's Top 100.
Warner. In the annual report it files with the U.S. regulator, Warner writes that "the music industry is currently focused on developing more effective strategies to monetize super fans." Among its expanded-rights revenues it lists direct-to-consumer sales, fan clubs and artist websites, and it offers artists services such as VIP ticketing and e-commerce.
What the bank says
In October 2026, Goldman Sachs published the tenth edition of Music in the Air, its annual report forecasting the music industry, and devoted one of its three key debates to direct-to-consumer. The report starts from a diagnosis: in streaming, in merch, on social media and in ticketing, a platform sits between the artist and the fan, "capturing the transaction, the data, or both."
The bank describes the opportunity as artist ownership "of the fan relationship, pricing, and data," rather than "renting access to fans through a platform's algorithm or paywall." According to the report, direct-to-consumer tools record who the most engaged fans are, how much they buy and how often. It is data that artists do not get from streaming platforms or social networks, and it can inform tour routing, marketing and release strategy.
The same chapter reads the three labels' moves as a sign that the opportunity is durable. For Goldman, direct-to-consumer revenue is still small: it could grow from tens of millions of dollars to hundreds of millions over a decade. And the bank sees that opportunity mainly in developed markets. Among the six themes it uses to pick companies, one says that control of intellectual property, audience access and distribution will increasingly decide the industry's economics.
The bank describes the artist's ownership. The labels' documents describe the base as the label's: Universal calls the 200 million "our 'owned' audience," and in Sony's caption, the first party is Sony. The two can coexist. How depends on the contract.
Why this reaches Brazil
According to Goldman, Latin America was the fastest-growing region in 2025, with recorded music revenue up 17.1%. The engine, per MIDiA Research, was a record number of new subscribers from markets like Brazil and Mexico. According to Spotify, the region now accounts for 24% of its Premium subscribers. The labels are looking there, each in its own way: high-growth markets are among the goals of Universal's chief executive, and Sony presents itself as the leader on the Latin American charts.
For a signed artist, this is a strong structure working in favor of their release, and the label may be the best partner for it.
Five questions for the contract
- Who is the controller of the data of fans who buy from the artist's official store, sign up for the newsletter or join the fan club?
- Does the artist's team have access to that data, as a named list or only as an aggregate report, and how often?
- Does the consent the fan gave allow the artist's team to contact them by email or WhatsApp, or only the label?
- If the contract ends, what happens to the base? Who keeps the store, the list of registered fans and the fan club?
- Does what is generated on partner platforms reach the artist's team, such as who buys the premium tier, who gets into the presale through streaming and who is flagged as a superfan?
This text is not legal advice. The answers depend on each artist's contract and on data protection law (in Brazil, the LGPD), and it is worth taking these questions to a lawyer who knows music contracts and data protection.
What is already in the team's hands
While the contract has no answer, the artist's team already collects data through channels it runs itself: the pre-save on the artist's own smart link and the list of buyers for the shows the team produces. Also its own store and fan club, and the contacts that come in through WhatsApp. Bringing those bases together, with consent and with someone on the team responsible for them, is the part that is in your hands.
When the contract with the label ends, will your artist's superfans leave with them?
Read also: Sony already has its fan data platform. Does your artist? · The superfan is worth a house of your own