Bigger names like Randy Houser, Joe Nichols and Trace Adkins have left, and their future star Josh Thompson has yet to significantly develop. And where is Toby Keith’s Show Dog? Struggling to even keep five artists signed. Since then, Borchetta has built Big Machine into a monolith of music with five separate labels groups, each with five or more artists: Big Machine, Valory, Dot, Nash Icon, and now Republic Nashville under sole ownership. When Toby Keith and Scott Borchetta parted ways in 2005 to start their own respective labels, they both were in the fledgling stages.

Borchetta also looked at selling to non label entities like iHeartMedia and Snapchat before deciding to stay put. Also, Borchetta was insisting if he sold to a major, that he would become the heir apparent CEO. Previously, reports had Scott Borchetta attempting to sell Big Machine to larger labels, but Borchetta’s evaluation of the label’s value and the value assigned to it by potential suitors was too far off. On July 2nd, it was announced that the Big Machine Label Group had re-signed a distribution deal with Universal, and in the deal, Big Machine has acquired full ownership of the imprint Republic Nashville. Meanwhile in the years prior, his income has stayed mostly stable. Toby Keith lost $12 million in salary in the last year. But now Toby Keith is only #32 on the Forbes list, and not only is Taylor Swift smoking him at #8 with $80 million banked, but the recently-unretired Garth Brooks comes in at #6 with $90 million. At an annual salary of $53 million, he’s still a major powerhouse. Let’s not kid ourselves, Toby Keith is still doing just fine. Every time Taylor Swift and Florida Georgia Line sell a record, Toby receives a little nugget, and he would even annually top Taylor Swift when it came to the Forbes’ rankings.īut times have changed, and so has the situation surrounding Toby Keith and his label. Even as his career has declined from his high-flying heyday in the oughts, as the owner of his own Show Dog label, and as one of the original investors in Scott Borchetta’s now massive Big Machine Label Group, Toby Keith gets paid big even if his own records aren’t selling. And when it comes to the realm of country music, Toby Keith has been the perennial king of the hill in recent memory.

Every year near the end of June, Forbes posts its list of the world’s highest-paid celebrities.

Cat Land by Keith Nichols