Gary Lineker will leave the BBC at the end of the 2026 World Cup in the United States, Mexico and Canada, with his flourishing Goalhanger podcast empire waiting in the wings for his unbridled attention.
Amid his departure, one episode per week of Lineker’s The Rest is Football podcast, which is produced by Goalhanger, will be hosted on BBC Sounds from next month, it has emerged.
With his contract due to expire at the end of the 2024/25 football season, the 63-year-old Match of the Day host, who is regularly named as one of the broadcaster’s top earners, entered into negotiations over an extension, but BBC bosses have elected to move on.
“Gary is a world-class presenter, and we’re delighted that he’ll lead our coverage of the next World Cup and continue to lead our live coverage of the FA Cup,” Alex Kay-Jelski, director of BBC Sport, said.
“After 25 seasons Gary is stepping down from MOTD. We want to thank him for everything he has done for the show, which continues to attract millions of viewers each week. He’ll be hugely missed on the show but we’re so happy he is staying with the BBC to present live football.”
It remains to be seen what his next full-time move will be but he is enjoying an unlikely role as the head of his own production company Goalhanger Films Ltd, the name being a nod to Lineker’s football days as a fox-in-the-box poacher.
The former Leicester City, Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham and England striker set up the company in 2014 with former ITV Controller Tony Pastor. 10 years later their collective podcasts reportedly achieve more than 40 million downloads per month, as per Esquire.
The first pieces of content that Goalhanger produced were a series of short vignettes that Lineker shot for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. The company then quickly moved into interviews with high-profile figures in the world of football including Pep Guardiola, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Jose Mourinho.
Although the company now boasts 12 incredibly successful podcasts to its name, that arm of the business had humble beginnings, namely Lineker’s kitchen.
Their first podcast was called Behind Closed Doors, which was essentially a laidback chat between Lineker and fellow broadcast veteran Danny Baker, going through their various grievances with the modern game.
That was in 2018, by Spring 2019 they had added a second podcast We Have Ways of Making You Talk, a World War II show hosted by historian James Holland and comedian Al Murray.
In the depths of the Covid lockdown in November 2020 This is History, hosted by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, arrived to cover not just a short period of history but the entire span of civilisation. The show has now produced more than 500 episodes, with The Wall Street Journal reporting in October 2024 that the show has more than 11 million downloads a month.
It wasn’t until 2022 that Goalhanger began flexing its muscles and started placing more podcasts under its umbrella.
Firstly, was the Ukraine war podcast Battleground, hosted by Patrick Bishop and Saul David and then came The Rest is Politics hosted by former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell and ex-Tory MP Rory Stewart.
Along with The Rest is History, The Rest is Politics has become one of Goalhanger’s biggest successes, which industry insiders claim has more 650,000 listeners per episode. In October, a live version of the show crammed 13,000 people into London’s 02 Arena, a venue that is more used to hosting concerts than podcasts.
An American version of The Rest is Politics, hosted by journalist Katty Kay and former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci, was launched in May 2024. A YouTube livestream that the show hosted on US election night drew in more than 850,000 viewers, an impressive total for a show competing against the might of Fox News, CNN and the BBC on the night.
Lineker then launched his own podcast, recruiting fellow Match of the Day stars Micah Richards and Alan Shearer, to start The Rest is Football in 2023. Two more history podcasts Legacy and Empire have since been added along with The Rest is Entertainment with Marina Hyde and Richard Osman and The Rest is Money with Steph McGovern and Robert Peston.
Goalhanger has even moved into the burgeoning world of scripted podcasts with Sherlock and Co. The mystery podcast is a novel take on the Sherlock Holmes character and the true crime phenomenon, with Holmes and Dr Watson (played by Paul Waggott and Harry Attwell) reimagined as modern podcasters. The show is aiming to adapt every single Holmes story with The Times reporting in April that it has already been downloaded more than two million times.
Speaking to Esquire in November, Lineker was asked whether he’d consider going full-time with Goalhanger he admitted that he “could do” but caveated that by saying: “At some point, I have to slow down somewhere… I’m getting old.”
Come July 2026, Lineker will have a lot more time on his hands so the audio world could very well be his oyster.
