![Gary Lineker with a studio mic](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/14/TELEMMGLPICT000383285398_17209695144160_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqi1GZCHM_B2ENRqq1JTUJTfObAEQ0AKdfoG-3hFyRwXg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
Gary Lineker was the real winner of Euro 2024
A rift with the England team has only helped catapult presenter’s personal podcast, and earnings, into a different league
![Gary Lineker with a studio mic](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/14/TELEMMGLPICT000383285398_17209695144160_trans_NvBQzQNjv4Bqi1GZCHM_B2ENRqq1JTUJTfObAEQ0AKdfoG-3hFyRwXg.jpeg?imwidth=680)
On one of the 29 podcasts he squeezed in while fronting BBC coverage in Germany, Gary Lineker emphasised his misfortunes as a player at the European Championship. He cited dire tournaments between career-defining goals at World Cups as he was struck down by hepatitis in 1988 and then that curious Graham Taylor substitution in 1992. At Euro 2024, however, his luck – prior to the shared pain of England’s final defeat on Sunday – appeared to have changed. The audio publishing phenomenon is gorging primarily on football and politics this summer, and Lineker’s Goalhanger “Rest Is” franchise has been scoring big daily from six yards.
Elections on both sides of the Atlantic in addition to the Euros have been a gift for Lineker’s Kennington-based podcast firm targeting the centrist zeitgeist. According to both Spotify and Apple charts in recent months, the only two shows bigger than The Rest Is Football, featuring Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, are the UK and US versions of The Rest Is Politics, of which Lineker is also the main beneficiary.
“We don’t really know what the boundaries are in terms of growth,” Lineker told The New Statesman in an interview 20 months ago. “But it’s a very, very good business.” Those close to Goalhanger said in Germany with some delight in recent days that the ceiling to the company’s growth is still not in sight.
Lineker’s estimated net worth is now £30m
Lineker has always moved into career-enhancing projects as deftly as he ghosted into opponents’ boxes. As a schoolboy with equal promise in football and cricket, he spent his spare time scribbling match reports. Then, at Italia 90, while at the peak of his playing powers, he was already being coined “Junior Des” by team-mates because of his keen interest in establishing a rapport with journalists. Now, not content with being confirmed as the BBC’s best-paid star for a seventh year in a row, Lineker is distracted by new horizons as a media mogul exerting influence well beyond the sport that made him.
Little wonder, given the audience growth, that he has been so buoyant, recording strident summaries of England displays while nursing glasses of red wine.
Some at the BBC have been unimpressed by the particularly opinionated moments, not least his description of the Denmark draw as “s---”, which Lineker subsequently claimed was taken out of context. But anger from the players has only helped grow audience share, with listener numbers soaring 70 per cent between the start of the tournament and that outburst. Lineker has already earned four times as much from his media career as he did during his 16-year playing career, with a reported net worth of £30 million. But Goalhanger, of which Lineker has between 25 and 50 per cent ownership, is fast becoming his most valuable asset, analysts believe.
‘I don’t preach. I don’t tell people what to do’
Thick-skinned Lineker has emerged more powerfully than ever in the year since the BBC tried and failed to clip his wings after he was perceived to have breached guidelines. He had been at the top of every nightly news bulletin for a week in March last year after describing Suella Braverman’s plans to stop small boats crossing the Channel as “an immeasurably cruel policy directed at the most vulnerable people, in language not dissimilar to that used by Germany in the ’30s”.
He told Telegraph Sport as the storm around him calmed that, “I’m absolutely baffled by the obsession of some of our media with what I say”. “I don’t understand it,” he said. “I don’t preach, I don’t tell people what to do. I’ve deliberately avoided doing that. I’m just a bloke who used to play football and who now talks about it. I have an interest in politics, but I’m not running for parliament or anything like that. I just give my views on things.”
![Gary Lineker with a glass of red wine](/https/www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam/football/2024/07/14/TELEMMGLPICT000382739056_17209696723060_trans_NvBQzQNjv4BqcE7BVK0Hg80i_Z6j_wjLED_cieIWtI8hm_P5_wVsAHE.jpeg?imwidth=350)
Nevertheless, the intensity of scrutiny around Lineker has ultimately proven good for business. The Rest Is Football was launched within six months of his run-in with Tim Davie, the BBC’s director-general. Tom Scott, chief executive and founder of branding firm Trippant, says Lineker has played his hand since suspension last year “impeccably”.
“Time and again we’ve seen, through public disagreement, the BBC needs him more than the other way around,” Scott tells Telegraph Sport. Prior to the tournament, Goalhanger already claimed to be the UK’s largest independent podcast group, with 17.5 million downloads a month. The numbers for this summer have yet to be published but Lineker’s son Harry indicated in a previous interview with The Telegraph that the empire – built on the success of sister shows The Rest Is History and The Rest Is Politics – has been attracting 37 million monthly downloads more recently.
Scott says Goalhanger’s “Rest Is” format – like Gary Neville’s Stick to Football programme – has huge appeal because they offer a “relaxed, inside scoop, launching the audience into the living rooms of the presenter, not the other way around”.
“The content and the guests are perhaps no different than you’d see on the BBC, but this is on his terms,” says Scott. “The medium perfectly suits his personality, unlocking him from the formality and guidelines the public broadcaster places on its actors. As the medium has evolved, so has Lineker ... converting those viewers into ad dollars.”
‘On a podcast, you can liberally promote yourself’
With listener numbers booming for the pod and Lineker turning down the prospect of fronting Champions League highlights, many wonder whether he is plotting his eventual exit at the BBC. “It wouldn’t surprise me that part of the reason that Lineker is investing so much energy in podcasts is that it is in anticipation of his leaving the BBC – whether it be by ejection or choice,” says leading brand expert Marcel Knobil, who adds that his increasingly opinionated punditry could see him sail “closer to the wind”.
“A growing number of personalities are earning respectable amounts from podcasts alone thanks to the associated sponsorships, advertising, affiliate marketing, book sales, and beyond,” Knobil adds. “The likes of Lineker, who already are appearing on TV, are using podcasts to further build their image and earnings.
“At the moment, it would be unlikely for Lineker to match his BBC earnings [£1.35m] through his podcasts alone, considering that the highest earning UK podcasts such as Steven Bartlett’s generate around £1m annually.”
But the US market, and its explosion in interest in Premier League football, will be a key target for Goalhanger, Knobil points out.
“Podcasts, as opposed to appearing on a terrestrial TV platform, allow one much more control over content and freedom to express personal views and biases,” he said. “One can also overtly and liberally promote yourself and associated brands. Lineker may well believe that such a medium will better suit him.”
Former BBC colleague Mark Lawrenson adds that Lineker is an enviable position. “Of course, it makes you free,” said Lawrenson, of increasing numbers of players working on podcasts. “Mind you, Gary’s in a position where it doesn’t matter what he says. Good luck to him.”
Even prior to his duties wrapping up Sunday night’s final for the BBC, there was a sense at Goalhanger HQ that Lineker could already count himself among the tournament big winners.