Sprint Buys $200 Million Stake in Jay Z’s Tidal Streaming Service

Despite the controversy surrounding Tidal’s alleged fraudulent subscription base, the streaming company announced that Sprint is buying 33 percent of Tidal.
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According to Market Watch, the deal would cost Sprint $200 million and make them competitive in the wireless field. For consumers, this partnership will bring exclusive content to 45 million post and prepaid customers of Sprint. In addition, Sprint Chief Executive Marcelo Claure will join Tidal’s board.

This news comes after reports surfaced of Tidal possibly inflating their subscriber numbers within the past year. A Norwegian newspaper was able to obtain internal reports from the streaming service, which shows that Tidal only had 350,000 subscribers when Jay Z announced in September 2015 that the streaming company reached 1 million users. Last March, when Tidal announced it reached 3 million subscribers it actually had only 1.2 million activated accounts and 850,00 subscribers.