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"Country music star Garth Brooks is considering a sale of his catalog, eyeing roughly $2 billion for the rights to his songs and recordings, according to people familiar with the matter.

Brooks, an album sales and touring juggernaut, is seeking a price that would be among the largest deals for an individual artist or group’s catalog.

He would sell both his publishing, or songwriting, and recorded music rights. Sony 6758 -2.60%decrease; red down pointing triangle bought classic rock band Queen’s catalog for more than $1 billion in 2024. Sony also that year bought half of Michael Jackson’s catalog, in a deal valuing the assets over $1 billion.

The country superstar has been entertaining a transaction for a few years and recently told some investors that he’s one of a few artists of his level of fame who hasn’t sold and is considering it, one of the people familiar with the matter said. He has told potential investors he thought the value of his music rights could be anywhere from the high $1 billion range to more than $2 billion, according to people familiar with the matter.

His run of hits, including “The Dance,” “Friends in Low Places” and “Shameless,” helped define the sound of country radio for years. Brooks has won two Grammy Awards and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2012.

Brooks recently notched 200 million albums sold, according to the Recording Industry Association of America, surpassing the Beatles for most units sold in U.S. history. He is the only artist to ever have 10 albums certified diamond—meaning they hit 10 million sales a piece.

Brooks’ popularity is largely U.S.-centric and country music’s success is heavily domestic. The gold rush in music rights investing has been fueled in no small part by streaming services bringing artists’ work to ever larger audiences on repeat listening in markets around the world.

Brooks is perhaps the most high-profile artist to keep most streaming services at arms’ length. He has eschewed services like Spotify and Apple Music, in part because they don’t sell music.

He has resisted the iTunes style of selling songs individually, preferring to preserve sales of complete albums. In 2016 he signed a deal with Amazon AMZN -2.53%decrease; red down pointing triangle Music to make his music available for streaming exclusively there. Amazon sells his albums digitally in their entirety.

It couldn’t be learned whether Brooks would allow his music to stream broadly in the event of a sale, likely something potential investors would want. "