Wal-Mart Inks Deal With Brooks
Last updated Friday, August 19, 2005 9:45 PM CDT in Business
By Anita French
The Morning News
Strong hints dropped with a wink and a nod by country entertainer Garth Brooks at the Wal-Mart shareholders meeting in June that he was now working for the Bentonville-based retailer turned out to be no joke.
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said in a news release Friday it had signed a multiyear, exclusive pact with Brooks, making the world's largest retailer and its Sam's Clubs the only places where his music will be commercially available.
The Morning News reported in a June 22 story that Brooks, who entertained at the June 3 shareholders meeting in Fayetteville, made a surprise announcement that he had terminated his longtime contract with EMI Capitol in Nashville, Tenn.
Doug Degn, Wal-Mart executive vice president of merchandising, then joined Brooks on stage to offer him a job and hand him a blue Wal-Mart smock.
"I just got hired by Wal-Mart and Sam's (Club), if you know what I mean," Brooks said after Degn left the stage.
Margaret Gilliam, who heads Gilliam Co., a New York-based retail and consumer research firm, was at the meeting when Brooks made his remark and said she was surprised no one picked up on it.
"I suspected as much," she said Friday, when told about the Brooks-Wal-Mart deal. "They were very poor poker players. I talked with Mike Duke (president/CEO of Wal-Mart Stores division) who was grinning from ear to ear, so I figured they had something very big in the works."
Neither Wal-Mart nor Brooks' publicist, Nancy Seltzer in Los Angeles, would confirm the rumors at the time, but Seltzer said to "stay tuned."
Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jackie Young said Friday that the company had no comment beyond what was in its news release, although she added that Wal-Mart was "thrilled" about the deal.
Wal-Mart's deal with Brooks marks the first time an artist has aligned his entire catalog with one chain. Although neither Brooks nor Wal-Mart would comment on the first arrival under the pact, industry sources say that it will be a multiple-disc box set including previously unreleased material. The set will hit shelves in late fall and will retail at around $25, according to Reuters.
Brooks told Billboard magazine he's not ready to discuss details of the Wal-Mart deal until "we get our ducks a row," but added that the forthcoming releases, "in everything from cost to content, will be an amazing deal for the Garth fan."
In her June Wal-Mart shareholders report, Gilliam noted that Brooks reminded everyone at the meeting that he had been welcomed by Wal-Mart people early in his career and the company was responsible for the sale of 25 percent of his recordings.
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