Newsboys lawsuit exposes underlying finances of CCM business

In the summer of 2001, I risked getting expelled by Bob Jones University for the chance to watch Michael W. Smith in concert at a Franklin Graham crusade at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C. This was just one year removed from the university overturning their ban on interracial dating. So back then, we considered Smith and Graham to be compromised liberals.

Still, I was curious to see what all the fuss was about myself. So I went, knowing the consequences if I were to get caught.

It was my first experience at a contemporary Christian music concert. And rather than instantaneously morphing into a liberal, I found myself inspired by the mix of praise, patriotism and the clear presentation of the gospel as I understood it at the time. But what also stood out were the calls to give money to charity.

In BJU’s fundamentalism, we often dismissed charity as “the social gospel.” But since Graham so clearly preached the threat of eternal conscious torment while offering the gospel of penal substitutionary atonement, what I had been told was “the social gospel” felt more like basic human kindness. It felt good to witness thousands of people giving money to feed hungry children. It seemed to fit well with George W. Bush’s call to “compassionate conservatism.” It also seemed to contradict the liberals who claimed conservatives didn’t care about the least of these.

Little did I know at the time that what looked like compassion may have been part of a larger story about capitalism.

Industrializing worship

“What does it mean to industrialize … a formative moment?” Vineyard USA pastor Caleb Maskell asked a panel of worship music industry insiders at Candler School of Theology last summer. Noting how committed evangelicals are to gathering together for worship each week, Maskell admitted, “When you introduce songs into that context, and then there’s money to be made by songs being sung together on Sunday morning, you have an entire industry that just shifts its focus toward that bucket of money.”

Maskell was talking about artists who make money through Christian Copyright Licensing International (commonly known as CCLI) when churches that are members of CCLI report which songs are sung. Bands like the Newsboys who write songs that aren’t typical Sunday morning worship songs have to find income elsewhere. But in the world of Christian music, we’re still talking about artists collecting buckets of money and concertgoers lacking awareness of where their money is going.

In my upcoming book, Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism, I make the case that the worship industry of Christian music has essentially become its own oligarchy, reflecting the image of the American empire.

One of the clearest examples of this worship oligarchy came to light last week as news broke that Wes Campbell, co-founder of the Newsboys, is suing 31 individuals and organizations he claims cost him and the Newsboys to lose hundreds of millions of dollars.

 

The controversy stems from a story in June 2025, where a woman alleged she was drugged by Newsboys lead singer Michael Tait, was assaulted by their lighting technician Matthew Brewer, and the whole thing was covered up by tour manager Steve Campbell. But according to the Newsboys, the sexual encounter was consensual. And according to the lawsuit, the woman’s story is part of a conspiracy to take down the Newsboys in contemporary Christian music’s competition for cash.

Of course, we should all hope the truth will come out and justice will be served regarding the allegations against the Newsboys. But as the courts sort out those details, we can’t miss how this lawsuit reveals the inner workings of the worship oligarchy, and how those of us who attend these concerts in hopes of communing with self, neighbor and God may be getting played for profit.

Producing a communal worship experience

While concert experiences are typically considered opportunities to hear your favorite artist or band, Christian music concert experiences take on an even more heightened sense of importance.

According to the lawsuit, “A CCM performance is, at its core, a communal worship experience. Artists pray openly with audiences, share personal testimony, and generally direct attention toward faith rather than themselves as performers. The audience participates not merely as concertgoers, but as members of a shared faith community.”

But while the concertgoer’s level of awareness tends to stay at the depth of these experiences, there’s a lot going on simply from a production standpoint that most people aren’t aware of.

As the lawsuit explains, “Artists almost always have an accompanying retinue (instruments and vocals) that perform with them. Behind the scenes at each performance are a coterie of supporting personnel responsible for unique stage lighting and lighting rigs, pyrotechnics and visual effects as well as stagehands, makeup artists, costume designers, managers and sound technicians. The quality of these components often distinguishes one artists’ performance from others.”

Because these production costs are paid for by the performing artists, the artists have to figure out how to offset their costs and make a living.

Years ago, much of the revenue artists made came from album sales. But due to the rise of digital streaming services that pay very little, the lawsuit says live concerts became the primary way artists make money. So they hire promoters who market their performances.

The co-dependency of artists and charity

In addition to making money from ticket and merch sales, Christian artists turn to donors from nonprofit organizations, which the lawsuit refers to as the NPS Market. Just as I experienced at my first CCM concert in 2001, the Christian artist provides the platform that draws thousands of concertgoers. Then the nonprofit charities provide the opportunity to raise significant funds. So in order to gain access to the artists’ platform, the charities pay a significant portion of the money raised at the event to the artist.

“The NPS Market and the CCM Touring Market are linked through the common economic input of artists’ Public Platforms and are structurally interdependent,” the lawsuit explains. “Without the CCM Touring Market, there is no NPS Market, and without the NPS Market, there is no CCM Touring Market.”

The financial terms of these relationships are negotiable and have evolved over time. For example, the lawsuit lists “per-event payments, revenue-sharing arrangements and, in earlier periods, ‘ambassador fees’ not directly tied to confirmed donors.” Eventually, they focused more on sponsorship projections. But as the lawsuit notes, that “left nonprofits exposed both financially and legally if those projections were not achieved — comparing the incurred costs of payments to artists and providing spokespersons and volunteers at each CCM Concert to the results, meant charities would have spent an outsize portion of others’ donations for advertising/marketing.”

“Remember the concertgoers think they’re giving to suffering children.”

Again, remember the concertgoers think they’re giving to suffering children.

Monopoly money

According to the lawsuit, about 80% of Christian concerts in the United States are promoted through three companies — Transparent, Premier and Rush. So when Waterland bought these companies, the lawsuit suggests it “created a monopoly.”

In the past, when a white evangelical worshiper at one of these events watched the nonprofit’s promo video between songs, heard the artist calling on them to be the church and support the kids, and then scanned the QR code and give money, the lawsuit says nonprofits would “normally pay approximately $200 per sponsor” directly to the artist. Concert promoters wouldn’t see any of that money. And if they tried to pressure the artist to share the money, then the artist could go with another promoter.

But with Waterland essentially creating a monopoly for concert promotions, they acquired the power to reset the terms.

“They realized they could now dictate the terms on which CCM Touring occurred,” the lawsuit claims. “And as a result of that control, they realized they had created a new ‘Platform’ of their own which they could now market to nonprofits for sponsorship payments that would come directly to them, bypassing the artists. If artists did not like it, the artists had nowhere else to go. The monopoly they had created had turned the tables.”

So with their newly acquired power, the lawsuit alleges Waterland made a deal with World Vision, the largest charity in the world, where World Vision would pay Waterland “an astounding $500 (or more) for each sponsorship generated at concerts promoted by the Waterland Defendants, in exchange for exclusive or near exclusive rights.”

The lawsuit then goes on to say: “To put that number into perspective, applying it to a mega group with a large Platform like MercyMe — a group then under contract with TCA — is instructive. Such a group may have 60 concerts a year, with average attendance at around 4,000 people per concert or 240,000 total annual concert attendees. If 6% of those attendees, or 14,400 people, became donors, with payments to the Waterland Defendants at $500 per donor, the annual payment the Waterland Defendants would receive would be $7,200,000. And that was just for one artist for one year. With Waterland promoting as many as 1,000 concerts and selling as many as 2,000,000 tickets a year, as their website boasts, revenue from their annual ticket sales would be around $80,000,000. But a payment of $500 per sponsorship would add for Waterland an additional $60,000,000 annually to their top line — almost a 75% increase in revenue at little to no extra expense.”

Keep in mind none of these claims have been adjudicated in court. At this point, they are just claims in a lawsuit. But the gist of the story already rings true.

Reflecting the empire

As people become aware of large sums of money going to corporations and celebrities rather than to children, they’re understandably shocked.

Imagine if the lead singer at one of these events would’ve admitted the truth about their pitch for donations. Imagine if they had created a tracker on the screen to show how much money they were making in real time, and another tracker to show how much they’ve made on tour so far just this year alone on the sponsorships. How enthusiastically would the attendees be singing on the next song as the money adds up? How many buckets of money could they fill if they were honest about where those buckets were going?

“How many buckets of money could they fill if they were honest about where those buckets were going?”

No matter how much anyone resonates with their songs, we all should be willing to recognize the fundamental framework is one of empire.

Empires strengthen the power of those at the top, dehumanize those below and wage war against those who won’t submit. And that’s exactly what we’re seeing in this story.

The lawsuit alleges that the Waterland Defendants, armed with their monopoly, began “to destroy the current business model and industry expectations which held that Platforms and sponsorship payments belonged to the artists, and to replace that with a new paradigm, which was that Platforms and sponsorship payments belonged to the promoter who held the power to decide if an artist toured or didn’t and the terms on which they would be compensated.”

Conservative white evangelical worshipers who deny the existence of systemic injustice need to look no further than their own worship industry.

The worship oligarchy strengthens the power of those at the top by valuing profit over people and cash over kids. It dehumanizes those below by commodifying the suffering of children. And it wages war against those who won’t submit by creating monopolies and filing lawsuits.

Perhaps the final word here should go to the prophet Amos: To those who “have built stone mansions” and “planted lush vineyards” but then “who oppress the innocent and take bribes and deprive the poor of justice in the courts,” he quotes God saying: “I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. … Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!”

 

Rick Pidcock is a 2004 graduate of Bob Jones University, with a bachelor of arts degree in Bible. He’s a freelance writer based in South Carolina and a former Clemons Fellow with BNG. He completed a master of arts degree in worship from Northern Seminary. He is a stay-at-home father of five children and is the author of a forthcoming book, Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. Follow his blog at www.rickpidcock.com.

 

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