How many people listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast? Here's a detailed breakdown of Joe Rogan Experience's growth in viewership

The Joe Rogan Experience is one of the most followed podcasts around the world and it attracts millions of views on its long format full episodes as well as it's shorter clips. Most MMA fans were initially attracted to the show as it was hosted by UFC commentator Joe Rogan and featured several prominent MMA fighters.

Even if you don’t know about the podcast’s existence, chances are that you have come across some clips from the show that contained interesting and sometimes, even controversial information. But, how many people actually listen to the podcast and how has it grown over the years? Let’s try to find out.

The Joe Rogan Experience catapulted into popularity primarily after its YouTube debut in 2013. It garnered a huge follower base in the years that followed. Spotify signed a $100 million deal with Joe Rogan for exclusive rights to the show. While the move was met with some resistance from fans as well as Spotify employees, the podcast has only grown in popularity.

The show’s growth was gradual and consistent throughout the years. Three years after its YouTube debut, the podcast had a little less than 1 million subscribers on its YouTube channel. However, the growth exploded after prominent guests like Elon Musk, Bernie Sanders, and Edward Snowden were featured on the podcast. JRE jumped to over 8 million subscribers in 2020 from its tally of 2 million in 2018.

Joe Rogan’s podcast has only grown since then and the 2020 Coronavirus pandemic gave an extra boost. As of August 7, 2023, the show has 2017 episodes [excluding fight companion, JRE MMA Show, and others] and over 3 billion total streams.

The famous Elon Musk ‘joint’ episode is the most-watched in the podcast’s history and garnered over 67 million views. Interestingly, a whopping 10 percent or 353 million of those 3 billion views came from the top 10 most watched episodes. Rogan continues to invite guests and have interesting conversations on a regular basis. So expect the numbers to get bigger as time goes by!

Check out Rogan's podcast with Musk below:

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Origins of ‘The Joe Rogan Exprience’

JRE first aired on the virtual event platform Ustream as a weekly broadcast. Brian Redban took care of the production at this time. Eventually, Jamie Vernon took over the production part of the podcast. Initially, it was not an interesting show packed with information that we are familiar with now. The first few episodes of the show were two people sitting in front of laptops, trying to figure out things to discuss.

It eventually developed into a meticulously planned show where Rogan invited guests from different walks of life to discuss their work, ideas and share life experiences with each other. The show eventually branched out into different shows like Fight Companion, JRE MMA Show, and the original format, The Joe Rogan Experience maintained its identity as well.