- 4 hours ago
Mark Cuban joined Billboard On The Record for the first-ever live taping of the podcast at SXSW to share his take on the music industry — and why breaking through as an artist has never been harder. Speaking from his perspective as an investor, Cuban explains how the industry has shifted, with music now treated as an asset class and algorithms shaping what becomes a hit. He reflects on why Spotify succeeded, where new music tech could create opportunities and how fans might respond to AI-generated songs. Cuban also emphasizes the importance of artists thinking like entrepreneurs, leveraging the right tools and securing placement in legacy media. In the conversation, he highlights why music is “recession-proof” and what it really takes to succeed in today’s ever-changing music landscape.
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MusicTranscript
00:00We all know Mark Cuban. The famous investor, known best perhaps because of his appearances on the hit TV show
00:06Shark Tank, has previously said in an interview that there's a few sectors that he considers to be the death
00:12in investing.
00:13This includes restaurants, liquor brands, clothing lines, and music.
00:18So, of course, when I knew I was going to Cuban in I's home state of Texas to film some
00:23live episodes of On the Record at South by Southwest, I knew I wanted to have Mark on to tell
00:28us why he said that.
00:30So on this episode of the show, here is an outside investor's perspective on the challenges and opportunities in music
00:36investing.
00:44Hello, hello, hello.
00:47Look, I had to pick a Texas band because we're in Texas today, y'all.
00:51Welcome to the first ever live taping of On the Record, which is Billboard's new music business podcast.
00:56We're here with the one and only Mark Cuban. Make some noise.
01:00Oh, my gosh. Mark, thank you so much for coming.
01:02Thanks for having me, Christy.
01:03Okay, so I wanted to have you here today because you're outside of the music business, actually.
01:09Everyone that I've had on the podcast so far are people within the music industry talking about how great it
01:14is and how perfect everything is going.
01:16But you have an outside perspective.
01:18And you've said a few times before that you think that music investing is really tough.
01:24Yeah, I think it's the worst industry ever.
01:26No, it's probably tied with clothing, branded clothing.
01:29You know how everybody always comes out, they have the slogan like, I, B, Y, U, and they make it.
01:35Yeah, that's the worst and music is right behind it.
01:38Okay.
01:38Okay, but there are so many different areas of music investing.
01:41We got catalog.
01:42We got traditional music companies like your record labels and publishers.
01:45We also could even look at the music tech companies, a lot of AI companies right now in music.
01:51So what are you talking about when you say that?
01:53So not so much the licensing because that's just a stream.
01:57That's not even music investing.
01:58That's cash investing.
01:59You know, where there's...
02:00So like catalog, you mean?
02:01Catalog, yeah.
02:01Okay.
02:02And then in terms of what's bad, more for artists from the artist's perspective, because everybody's an artist, you know?
02:09And no one ever creates a song in particular, and they think, well, my song sucks, you know?
02:14So everybody thinks their song is going to be a hit.
02:16They hear it.
02:17They feel it.
02:18They spend all their time, all this emotion.
02:20And then you have to go through this machine to try to hope that you can pop out on the
02:25other side and actually make a living.
02:27And it's really hard.
02:28And 99.99% of people fail.
02:31So yeah, so you're talking about kind of like frontline current artists.
02:34Yeah.
02:34It's just really tough.
02:35Any artist, yeah.
02:36Anybody trying to write a song or perform a song and get it published?
02:40Yeah.
02:41I mean, what's really interesting about the music industry is that I think it's inarguable that being a musical artist
02:46and having that work out is one of the hardest things to accomplish in the world.
02:50But also we're seeing a ton of interest from the financial world, like your KKRs, your shamrock capitals of the
02:56world, in investing in older music.
02:58Like we're seeing these giant sums of money for Queen's catalog, Britney Spears, whatever.
03:02And it's just interesting that there's...
03:05But that's not really music investing.
03:07Yeah.
03:07It just happens to be music that is the vehicle for their investment.
03:11Because they look at Queen, they look at David Bowie, they look at the original Bowie bonds, right?
03:16Oh, yeah.
03:16And so they say, here's, you know, all the licensing revenues pretty much every year and it's consistent and it
03:22increases by 3% or 4% a year.
03:25And the artist really hasn't been able to get a big cash out yet or the catalog owner at that
03:30point in time.
03:30So someone like a KKR, a big investment company, will just come in and say, okay, I'll give you all
03:35this money.
03:36And they just see it as, you know, here's my returns.
03:39It's almost like, you know, owning an apartment building.
03:41It's an asset.
03:42But that's how they always phrase it as like music is now an asset class, which I think if you
03:46say that in front of an artist, that would really freak them out.
03:49Yeah, because it kind of like diminishes their art and their work and everything.
03:53And they're right, right?
03:54At that point in time, they don't care who the artist is.
03:57They just care who licenses it.
03:58And then once you own the catalog, you know, if they want to put you into a Skechers commercial, you
04:05know, or whatever, they can do whatever.
04:08Yeah.
04:09I mean, yeah, it's very interesting.
04:10I always tell people, I'm like, okay, when you're talking among your finance bros, you can talk about music as
04:15an asset all day, every day.
04:16But if you get in front of an artist and you talk like that, you're not going to love that.
04:21It's an insult.
04:22Yeah.
04:22Yeah, yeah, it totally does.
04:24Well, I mean, moving on to a different category within the music industry, music tech.
04:31So Spotify is one of those companies that when I talk to investors about investing in music, they say, you
04:37know, it's not producing enough returns for us to be interested.
04:40But Spotify is usually the one example where they're like, yeah, I kind of wish I invested in Spotify.
04:45I'm wondering, do you think there, I mean, that was kind of the rise of the streaming era.
04:50We're now moving into an AI era.
04:52Do you think that there's going to be another opportunity for a Spotify-like music company to emerge?
04:57It depends how consumers, music consumers take to AI-generated music.
05:03Yeah.
05:03Because if they see it as an equivalent to what an artist produces, then yes, there'll be new ways to
05:09do it.
05:10And it may not even be through a third party.
05:12It could be, okay, give me your Spotify end of year, right?
05:16And then I'm going to create music just for you.
05:19And if people accept that, the game changes completely.
05:23If you still want to get radio play and all that, or if you listen to radio, or if you
05:26want, you know, to take Spotify's recommendations, then I don't, you know, then no, that won't happen.
05:32But that's to be determined.
05:34We don't know how people are going to respond to purely AI-generated music.
05:38And we're seeing some of it roll up the, you know, the hit list, right?
05:41And so it's not that people are saying no.
05:43We just don't know if they'll only say yes to it.
05:46Well, yeah, what's interesting about that is like, yeah, we don't know if they're saying no.
05:50We also don't really know if they're saying yes.
05:51Because a lot of the instances where AI songs are moving up some form of a chart, we see it
05:57on the TikTok charts.
05:58We've seen it.
05:59We've seen it.
05:59But that's how everything works, right?
06:01Everything is built on the algorithm.
06:03Yeah.
06:03The entire music industry, other than old school radio, is built on algorithms.
06:08I mean, whether you start on YouTube, whether you start on TikTok, whether it's Instagram, where, you know, whatever the
06:15meme is, you need to be part of it.
06:17And you need to feed that algorithm.
06:19And even though if you're a new artist and you're trying to get on Spotify, you know, you're trying to
06:24create content that tweaks the Spotify algorithms to get you in front of more people, right?
06:30And so that's kind of what makes it so hard.
06:35It's almost like politics and you're a candidate that's trying to find your way.
06:40Music is the same way.
06:41You have to understand how algorithms work in order to be successful.
06:45Or you just have to be so good, nobody can ignore you.
06:48Yeah.
06:49I mean, that's interesting you bring up politics.
06:51Tomorrow's episode, live episode of On the Record, is going to be all about how songs go viral today.
06:56And a lot of the tactics that are used by politicians are also used by record labels trying to break
07:01songs.
07:01And it's all these weird covert ways that you wouldn't even know that they're kind of manipulating the algorithm because
07:08what record labels used to offer was access to all these gatekeepers.
07:13They used to know, you know, all the people at the radio stations.
07:16That's still important, but it's kind of further down the line.
07:19I knew all those people, right?
07:21You had to know the PD, the program director.
07:23You had to know the consultants.
07:24And there were consultants for every format.
07:26And then they would switch from classic rock to alternative or whatever.
07:31Now it almost doesn't even matter.
07:33Yeah, yeah.
07:34And so now what they're really trying to do is try to give you some sort of a boost on
07:38the algorithm any way that they can.
07:39And usually it's kind of throwing money at the problem, maybe hiring a digital marketing company who promises they can
07:44do it.
07:44Which they can't.
07:45Which no one can totally promise it.
07:47But now what's crazy, here's what's changing.
07:49Yeah.
07:50Do you guys know what agentic AI is from companies like Claude and Clawbot and all that?
07:55That'll revolutionize all of that because it'll be able to not be smart,
08:01but to just keep on banging on.
08:03Because when you hire an agency, they bring in some people and they say, based on my experience, here's what
08:08you should do.
08:09And here's how we'll kind of reverse engineer the algorithms.
08:12This is what works.
08:14Agents don't have to do that.
08:15You set up your own little Mac mini with Clawbot and it'll just send everything it needs to to a
08:21list.
08:21It'll create websites.
08:23It'll create unlimited number of websites.
08:24Like you've talked about the fan websites that are created by the publishers or distributors.
08:31And you're going to see that times a million with agents.
08:35Yeah.
08:36Yeah.
08:36I mean, it just kind of, when I think about that and I go that far down the line with
08:41AI,
08:41it's like what music jobs are going to be left.
08:45You still need to see the jobs won't disappear.
08:47It'll just because, so you look where the leverage is.
08:50Right.
08:51So if you're a distributor, publisher, you know, you're Warners, you're Sony, whatever, right?
08:56Universal.
08:57You have all the leverage right now because you can get placement on legacy media no matter what.
09:03Right.
09:04You're not going to all of a sudden be able to make something viral on TikTok.
09:09Well, you can get placement in on radio stations.
09:12You can help create a tour.
09:13You can place them in venues.
09:15So you have leverage there.
09:16The people at the bottom, the new artists, have no leverage.
09:21And so the less leverage you have, the more you're going to try to use new agentic AI opportunities
09:27because the marginal cost for you to try to connect is really small.
09:32Well, okay.
09:33So if it was that a lot of baby artists who are, you know, not plugged into a record label
09:39yet start using all these new tools that are going to come about via agentic AI, it kind
09:46of like makes it so the artist doesn't have to sign to a record label for even longer and
09:51even longer.
09:52And that's a trend we've already started seeing.
09:53For sure.
09:54Artists are doing a lot of stuff.
09:55I would say artists very much so have to be entrepreneurs to make it.
09:59Oh, every artist is an entrepreneur.
10:00You have to be, and you have to make tough decisions.
10:03They're almost like athletes in that you weren't raised to be a business person or an entrepreneur,
10:08but you've got to figure it out.
10:09And you've got to hope that if you don't work on it, then the people you trust are trustworthy.
10:16But again, I'll go back to AI.
10:18Like if I was a baby artist and I was getting started, I would go right into Clyde and say,
10:23okay, what steps should I take to try to maximize my Spotify uptake, if you will, right?
10:29How can I, you know, so, you know, the whole thing of going to the Spotify editors, it'll
10:34write, you know, their letter to the editor.
10:36Now you, now you have to like tweak it so it doesn't, because otherwise they'll all sound
10:40the same.
10:40Yeah.
10:41Right.
10:41Yeah.
10:41But then, you know, make, you know, I need some fan accounts, right?
10:44And I need some fan websites and I need this and I need that.
10:48It'll all do it in three minutes.
10:51Yes.
10:51Okay.
10:51But, but then, okay.
10:53The Spotify editors are going to be flooded.
10:55I'm going to be flooded as a music journalist.
10:57And I think it's going to, I mean, it's just going to be even harder to break through and
11:03to get noticed.
11:04Every time there's a new technology, the early adopters get an advantage.
11:07So if you're one of the first hundred to use Spotify editor, you do this for Spotify editor,
11:13you're good, right?
11:14Because they're still figuring it out.
11:16Then if you're the next 5,000, then it all has to change.
11:20And so you'll start looking for different ways to accept input from people because, and
11:25so you'll use your own agent that says, okay, if this comes from a genetic AI, dismiss it
11:31unless it's A, B, or C.
11:33And so, you know, and people think these are going to replace jobs and it's all going to
11:37get ugly.
11:38And I don't believe that at all because somebody has got to have some common sense.
11:42Somebody's got to be able to use judgment because you're not going to trust your AI to,
11:47you know, to look at the emails or the input that you get and make a decision.
11:51Yeah.
11:52Interesting.
11:53Interesting.
11:54One thing that a lot of people in the music industry believe, especially investors in music
11:57catalogs believe, is that the music industry is recession resistant or recession proof.
12:03That is not correlated with the overall market.
12:05If the economy were to tank tomorrow, people are not going to stop listening to music.
12:10Spotify is so cheap.
12:11Why would they cut the cord on that first?
12:13Maybe they would cut the cord on Paramount or, you know, their million.
12:16Whatever comes next.
12:17Yeah, yeah, yeah.
12:17Video on demand services, but maybe not music.
12:20I'm wondering what your thoughts are on that idea.
12:23Does that hold up?
12:24No, I think it holds up, right?
12:25Okay.
12:26Because the worst things are, the more people need music.
12:29You know, so I'm a big believer in that, that music soothes the soul type thing, right?
12:33Totally.
12:34And just, you know, makes life livable.
12:37But at the same time, again, what's the source of all that new music?
12:43That's what we don't know.
12:44And so if you've played with any of the music creation tools, they're good.
12:52Have you tried them out yourself?
12:53Yes, of course.
12:54I've tried everything from Sora to all of them, you know, because we all, you know, we sing
12:58in the shower.
12:58Now we don't have to sing in the shower to sound good.
13:00You know, you just talk and give it your voice and let it create a song to the genre
13:04you want.
13:05And you're like, oh my fucking God, is that me?
13:08You know, and now imagine if somebody that has talent is able to do that, right?
13:14And has, is creative, unlike me and can create something.
13:17Now, is that going to be the source?
13:19And, you know, how are we going to convey that?
13:23Is it like, okay, Mark, I like the tenor of your voice.
13:27Can I license your voice and put it into this new AI music generation tool and let it create
13:33the songs that I like, right?
13:35Or you could, you know, Adele, I don't need you to write the songs.
13:40I'll write my songs.
13:41I want to use your voice.
13:42There's going to be a lot of instances where music companies, they're already starting to
13:47do licenses with some of these AI platforms.
13:50They're going to be having to reach out to the artists and be like, hey, are you cool with
13:53us doing this?
13:54So it'll be interesting to see if your Adele's of the world have any interest in being part
13:57of this or not.
13:58They get paid for sure.
14:00Yeah, but it's, well, that's one of the things I've been dealing with in my reporting is I
14:04can't get much clarity on how it's going to trickle down to the artists.
14:07So the reason you can't get clarity is because nobody's paying enough money to get their attention.
14:12Yeah.
14:12Because remember, like my company, AudioNet, way back when, 1995, was the first streaming
14:17company.
14:18And, you know, when there were a thousand, then 10,000, a million, 5 million, 10 million
14:23people streaming, when it was a thousand, we couldn't get the label's attention.
14:28And then we got up to a couple million.
14:30And then we had like Matchbox 20 releasing songs.
14:33We had Willie Nelson releasing songs on our jukebox, you know, where you had to download
14:38all this stuff.
14:39It's not like Spotify or Netflix or anything.
14:41So it was a different world.
14:42But once the numbers got big enough, you know, and then when Napster came along and
14:46it started taking money from CDs and DVDs, et cetera, then that got their attention.
14:52Right now, it's not enough money and it's not taking enough money to get their attention,
14:55but it will at some point in time.
14:58Yeah.
14:58I mean, well, that's very interesting that you bring up Napster.
15:02That's kind of around the same time as the dot-com bubble.
15:04I know that you were very active during that time in like the early days of the internet.
15:08That ended up being a bubble that you were able to glide through and continue on.
15:12Yes, I did okay.
15:13Yeah, you did okay in it.
15:14You did okay in it.
15:15But now a lot of people are saying that right now we're in an AI bubble.
15:19What do you think?
15:20I think for private companies, the economics may be a little bit rich right now because
15:25like back then, anybody with a website could go out there and raise a million dollars.
15:29Now, if you have, you know, any amount of decent AI technology, you could raise, you know,
15:35in some cases, tens of millions of dollars.
15:37And so, but back then it was a public company bubble.
15:41Now, because it's geared towards private companies, it's not really a bubble by definition because
15:46most people can't participate.
15:48Like I remember to come in the early days of South by when we had AudioNet and then
15:52broadcast.com and we went public and it was just like a huge IPO and being in a cab, remember
15:58cabs, being in a cab and people talk, the cab drivers just wanting to talk about internet
16:03stocks.
16:04Like you don't have people talking about internets, maybe a little bit.
16:08You've got like NVIDIA and some of these others, but it's not the same at all.
16:13Okay.
16:14Interesting.
16:14And plus the other thing I'll add, AI, like once you got to a certain point from 1995 to
16:222000 and 2002, like it was only about bandwidth.
16:25The technology didn't really change a lot.
16:27The technology in on with AI is just changing by the millisecond.
16:32And so as it applies to music, we're, I mean, like in 1995 to stream a song, like if you
16:39want, you could literally go stream Willie Nelson's latest album, right?
16:44We brought, we broke songs for, um, um, Matchbox 20 and others, but to do that, you had to first
16:50have an internet service provider subscription, download this thing called a TCPI client, download
16:55your internet service provider client.
16:57And then on top of that download, you know, real audio or Microsoft, whatever to listen
17:02to the song, you had to go through all this just to be able to listen to a song.
17:07The technology got better and it got easier.
17:10Yeah.
17:10AI is the same way.
17:12The technology is going to get a lot better, just like the streaming technology did.
17:16And what happens then?
17:17Oh my God.
17:18Cause now no one thinks about things twice about what's streaming, what's behind all that
17:22happens to stream.
17:23You just click on your Netflix movie or you click on Spotify or whatever it comes up.
17:27And it's like magic.
17:28It's magic.
17:28Yeah.
17:29Yeah.
17:29And AI is still not in that magic phase yet.
17:32Yeah.
17:32Yeah.
17:32Well, I mean, okay.
17:33So you were in on early streaming.
17:35Why do you think Spotify ended up being the one that really nailed it for music?
17:39Cause I sold to Yahoo and they fucked it up.
17:42And I'm being serious.
17:44I'm being very serious.
17:45Cause like when we, well, when we sold in 2000, we had, um, 400 internet radio stations.
17:51We had literally, it could be here in March and we had Christmas radio stations playing.
17:56I remember programming my own radio stations and you could program your own radio station.
18:01Um, we were streaming everything.
18:02We started doing live TV, all this stuff.
18:04And then, um, we sold to Yahoo and then the internet bubble burst and they kind of closed
18:10everything down cause they were stupid.
18:12And that's when YouTube, like YouTube took off, took five years before YouTube started
18:16to happen.
18:17And, you know, Spotify, I knew all those guys, right.
18:20You know, they would come to me, they would come to these events where I was speaking and
18:24they were just getting started.
18:26So, um, and I, I think we'll see something built around AI that just changes the game
18:31because AI can, can do things that we never imagined.
18:35Yeah.
18:36I mean, going back to what we were talking about earlier with whether or not audiences will
18:40enjoy and take to AI generated songs.
18:43It's really interesting.
18:43Like what we've been seeing recently is the songs that have climbed the charts.
18:48It seems like the audience doesn't really know it's AI.
18:50It's usually the very passive forms of consumption when it can succeed.
18:55So like when I'm scrolling on TikTok and there's a song in the background, I'm not really thinking
18:59about who's that song.
19:01What's the source?
19:01Yeah.
19:02But on the flip side, like I've heard real artists and I thought they were AI.
19:05Okay.
19:05Yeah.
19:05Fair.
19:06You know, I mean, that's kind of become like an insult to hurl at people if they make
19:09some bad art.
19:10It's just like, oh, is that AI basically?
19:12Right.
19:12But I mean, but you know, I mean, have you guys listened to something and you thought
19:16it was AI or saw it?
19:17Yeah.
19:18That's just, and you will get to the point where we don't know.
19:21The question is, will we get to the point where we don't care?
19:23Yeah.
19:24You know?
19:24And I think we will.
19:26Because again, like some of the slop we see in social media that was videos that were
19:32done in AI are hysterical.
19:34Like 99% of them are bad.
19:36But if your algorithm is good enough, you'll only get the good ones and those will be the
19:40entertaining songs or videos.
19:42You're not going to, why would you care?
19:44Yeah.
19:44Have you heard about like the dead internet theory?
19:46Uh-uh.
19:47Okay.
19:47So basically the idea is like there's so much AI slop that ends up clogging up all of these
19:51streaming services, the social media services that people basically can't use the internet
19:56to find what they want anymore.
19:57They can't find relevant information.
19:59What do you think about that idea?
20:01Algorithms.
20:02Algorithms are going to be the, it's like, it's like AI is the problem and the solution.
20:05Yeah.
20:06And algorithms are the problem and the solution.
20:08Because when you think about social media, each and every one of us has our own unique
20:12feed.
20:13If you want to learn about somebody, like if you want to learn about somebody you're
20:16dating or like for me, my kids, like I have a 16 year old son, I tell exactly what
20:21he's into.
20:22I just bring up his Instagram or TikTok.
20:24And right now it's like basketball, basketball, football, fantasy sports, hot girl, car.
20:30And I'm like, cool, we're good.
20:32You know, it's like nothing concerning here.
20:34Nothing concerning there, right?
20:36You know, but so, but like on politics, going back to politics, right?
20:41Algorithms drive all politics.
20:43You know, you see James Tallarico here in Texas.
20:45Yeah.
20:46Yeah.
20:46He's good at dealing with social media, right?
20:49He, a positive message.
20:51Once you watch a couple of his messages, you get more positive things.
20:54That makes you feel good.
20:55You realize it was him, you know?
20:57And then on the flip side, there's other candidates where it's just like hate, hate,
21:00hate, hate, hate, or this person's wrong or that person's wrong.
21:03And if you like that, you get more negative things.
21:06And I think, um, believe it or not, that's where the intersection of politics and music
21:10comes because whatever it is you consume the most of, that's what you're going to get
21:15more of.
21:16And that will influence on those platforms.
21:20Now it's not going to impact your, your Spotify or Pandora, but on those platforms, it'll
21:24enter, it will influence what you get, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, but
21:28that's algorithms are more dominant in the music and social media industry and have more
21:34influence than anything.
21:35Yeah.
21:36I mean, it is the gatekeeper.
21:37It's just the gatekeeper that you can't hit up and be like, Hey, do you want to go to
21:40dinner?
21:40And I, you know, you can go in there and it'll say, you know, here's your algorithm and you
21:45can mess with it and stuff, but nobody does like, no one's going to waste the time to
21:48do that.
21:49Yeah.
21:49Well, I mean, I think like in an age where AI is starting to enter the creative sphere
21:54and there are going to be more and more AI songs, whether people know what they're
21:57listening to or not, that become pretty popular.
22:00I I'm like very bullish right now on live events.
22:03Oh yeah.
22:04Totally different.
22:04Totally different.
22:05Yeah.
22:05Yeah.
22:06It's like, what are the things that human artists can do better that AI can simply
22:11never do?
22:11Plus you want that personal connection.
22:13Yeah.
22:13Yeah.
22:13Like I invested in a company that had, does emo nights where people go, well, they go
22:17disco nights.
22:18Right.
22:19And so, cause people just want to go and chop it up and have fun.
22:22Right.
22:23And so, um, getting out of the house is going to be at a premium.
22:27Going and deal with humans is going to be at a huge premium.
22:31You know, that's how we'll, cause that's, we're all going to want to get away from that
22:35shit at some level, you know?
22:37And so going out and like you said, live events, concerts, they're not backing down at all.
22:43They're only getting more and more popular.
22:44Yeah.
22:45Yeah.
22:45I mean, I think the big problem for fans right now is figuring out how you can make
22:48concerts more affordable.
22:50There's like a million reasons why they're unaffordable.
22:52We saw the Live Nation thing.
22:53We saw the Live Nation stuff this week.
22:55So, but yeah, I mean, I, I just really feel like that's going to be the thing.
22:59I said this on like an earlier episode of the podcast where we're predicting 2026 and
23:03what it's going to look like.
23:04And I was like, that is the thing that I predict.
23:06I think that people are going to care about concerts more than ever.
23:09That's why I made this investment just for that reason.
23:12And, you know, it's a DJ as opposed to a live artist, but it's just fun.
23:16And, you know, and it's like, put your phone down.
23:18Don't bring your phone in.
23:20Just dance.
23:21I mean, just, just dancing.
23:24Like we make dancing popular again.
23:26The whole zeitgeist of the country changes, you know?
23:29Absolutely.
23:30Absolutely.
23:30Well, okay.
23:31I want to pivot a little bit and ask you, do a little bit of a sports tie-in because
23:36obviously you have had a long relationship with the Mavericks.
23:39Yes, still do.
23:40And okay.
23:41So you have seen how much sports betting and prediction markets have influenced sports.
23:47Yeah.
23:48I, another one of my predictions for 2026 is that prediction markets are going to somehow
23:52infiltrate the music industry more.
23:54Do you, do you foresee that?
23:55Yes, for sure.
23:55Anything you can bet on.
23:56Yeah.
23:57So I was always a proponent of gambling for sports, but I never really thought it all the
24:03way through.
24:03I thought it was wins, losses, a couple of prop bets.
24:05Yeah.
24:06Now they're like, you know, will he blow his nose before the second quarter starts?
24:11Yes.
24:11You know?
24:12And so people will bet on anything.
24:13And in prediction markets, it's easier to set the odds and you don't have to get a lot
24:18of money on either side.
24:19So you can bet $1.
24:20And if someone will take $3 on the other side, it could be, you know, how many, you
24:25know, what, what the spins number for the Spotify artists or song is going to be.
24:31And then you'll see if someone's making an investment in that artist, they'll use that
24:36to hedge.
24:37So they'll say, I'm investing, you know, $50,000 in this artist.
24:42And so I want to say, if he doesn't, I want to take the side of, if he doesn't get
24:46whatever
24:47the number of spins are that would make me or plays that would make me, um, um, make
24:52me profitable.
24:53I'll take the other side and try to get somebody to hedge for me so that if it doesn't happen,
24:58I make some of that money back.
25:00Wow.
25:00Wow.
25:01It's going to be so interesting to see how crazy.
25:03Cause I just feel like it hasn't totally touched music yet.
25:06You'll see fans betting on the odds of, you know, the Grammy outcomes, but like, that's
25:10about it so far.
25:11So here's the other reason why that'll take off because, you know, now people think about
25:15Polly market and Kalshi, right?
25:17They don't realize that Robin hood has got it too.
25:19And there's so many other places popping up and there'll be one that pops up just to
25:24focus on music.
25:25There'll be one that pops up just to focus on social media play, whatever it may be.
25:29Um, if you can gamble on it, people will.
25:31Wow.
25:32Um, okay.
25:33I have one more question for you.
25:34Um, so at the Grammys a couple of years ago, Chapel Rhone took the stage when she was
25:39accepting her best new artist, uh, win, and she dedicated that speech to how artists don't
25:45really have good healthcare options right now.
25:47It is extremely hard to make it as an artist in the beginning because you're not making
25:51any money.
25:51And also you don't receive healthcare from a record label.
25:54Even if you do sign, um, you obviously have gotten really deep in the healthcare industry
25:58with cost plus drugs.
25:59Um, how do you think that that kind of a company could help artists?
26:03We, we help independent artists, filmmakers all day, every day.
26:07And here's, for those of you who don't know, I started a company called costplusdrugs.com.
26:11And what makes a difference when you go, typically when you get a prescription from the doctor,
26:16they just say, what pharmacy do you use?
26:18And then you just pray that your copay or coinsurance, or if you don't have it, that
26:21you can afford it.
26:22Right.
26:22And so with costplusdrugs, we don't carry every drug, but we carry thousands.
26:26You go there, you put in the name of the medication and when it comes up, we'll show
26:30you our actual cost.
26:32What it literally costs me to buy it.
26:34Um, then we mark it up only 15% and then it's $5 to have a shift to you, or
26:39you can
26:39get another option to pick it up, um, at a local pharmacy.
26:43And by only marking it up 15%, 99.99% of the time we're cheaper than anybody else, particularly
26:50for more expensive drugs.
26:51So if it's something for $4 at Walmart, we're not going to be cheaper.
26:54But if it's a, you know, I can't tell you how many emails and calls and people walking
26:59up to me on the street have said, you know, this drug was going to cost me $900 and I
27:04need it to stay alive, but I don't want to take it because I don't want to put the credit
27:07burden on the credit card with my family.
27:10If I'm only going to live, however, and then we went to costplusdrugs.com and it was $40,
27:15you know, and I hear, you know, 5,000 down to $21, 9,000 down to 120.
27:21And so, you know, it's no surprise to anybody that, you know, that the economics of the healthcare
27:26industry, people can get greedy, you know, and people don't really care.
27:29They're too big to care.
27:30And so we're just, you know, my mission in life right now is just to fuck up the cost
27:34of healthcare.
27:34Love it.
27:35Love it.
27:36Love it.
27:36Yeah.
27:37Okay.
27:38We're going to end off with what would you cue?
27:40It's a rapid fire.
27:41Fire alarm.
27:42Okay.
27:42So what would you cue a song?
27:44Just pick one song to take you back to your childhood.
27:46Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys.
27:48Great.
27:49Okay.
27:49What would you cue to remember your favorite era of music?
27:54Rapper's Delight.
27:55I'm showing how old I am.
27:57Okay.
27:58What would you cue to remember your favorite concert?
28:04That's a good one because I've gone to a lot of concerts.
28:09Stevie Wonder.
28:10No, John Mellencamp.
28:12John Mellencamp.
28:16Oh, this time I think I'm really, I'll just go with Hurt So Good.
28:19And I say that because I went to Indiana University, home of the national champions,
28:23and John Mellencamp's from there.
28:24And so that's, yeah, all the songs I grew up with.
28:27All right.
28:28And last one, what would you cue if you were part of the Dallas Mavericks and walk it up
28:32to the court?
28:33What would be that walk-up song?
28:34Life's Been Good by Joe Walsh.
28:36Amazing.
28:36Okay.
28:37Thank you, Mark Cuban, for coming to On The Record.
28:39All right.
28:40Thanks so much again to Mark Cuban for joining me on our special South by Southwest episode
28:44of On The Record.
28:45If you liked today's show, give us a follow on Instagram,
28:48at BillboardOnTheRecord, where you can see new clips of this show every single week.
28:53We'd also appreciate it if you rated our show on your favorite podcast platform.
28:56All these things help On The Record grow bigger and better than ever.
29:00Again, I'm your host, Kristen Robinson, and tune in later this week for another
29:04South by Southwest episode of Billboard On The Record.
29:07See you then.
29:08See you then.
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