The reason he can be "more independent" is exactly because he's not dependent financially on media, not his MMA bg.
I assumed it did and they got cut out?
https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-does-Joe-Rogan-make-fro...
For example (in my case) if you listen on Apple Podcasts you can hear 5 minutes of him talking about brands. These brands probably pay him tens of thousands per episode to get a shoutout. Pretty sure YT may make a good contribution, but not so much that he relies on it.