Now BBC gives Lineker’s ‘The Rest is Football’ podcast the boot ...Middle East

The BBC has terminated a deal to run Gary Lineker’s hit The Rest Is Football podcast following the presenter’s early exit from the broadcaster.

The agreement to run episodes of the football show, produced by Lineker’s Goalhanger business, on the BBC Sounds platform will end this week, The i Paper has learned.

It comes after Lineker left the BBC after facing pressure over a social media post, which was considered to be an antisemitic slur. He apologised unreservedly.

The Rest Is Football features Lineker and fellow Match of the Day (MOTD) pundits Alan Shearer and Micah Richards discussing the weekend’s Premiership action in a relaxed format.

The original Goalhanger agreement announced last year was a “one-year deal with the opportunity to extend, with episodes remaining available on BBC Sounds for three years”.

A renewal of the Rest Is Football licence would have taken the podcast through to next summer’s World Cup, which would have been Lineker’s BBC swansong.

It was negotiated alongside the deal that Lineker would give up presenting MOTD at the end of this season but stay with the BBC to front the World Cup – an arrangement that is also now terminated.

Last week, The i Paper reported that the position of the BBC’s highest-paid presenter, earning £1.35m, had become untenable after the latest in a series of controversies.

The BBC said it will continue to air The Rest Is History, the popular series hosted by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, which is also made by Goalhanger.

The football podcast had irritated some BBC Sports executives because Lineker and his fellow BBC pundits made headlines by delivering more critical opinions than those offered during their TV appearances.

Lineker called England’s performance against Denmark “shit” during last summer’s European Championships during one episode.

Since November, episodes – edited for any foul language – have aired on BBC Sounds two days after their debut on commercial podcast platforms and YouTube.

Gary Lineker outside his home in London after announcing he is leaving the BBC prematurely (PA)

The deal was designed to help broaden Sounds’ audience and bring the BBC some benefit from a podcast, generating significant revenues in the commercial sector, which employed its frontline talent.

Episodes of the History series air on Sounds two months after their first broadcast. The BBC is unable to host The Rest Is Politics podcast, fronted by Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart, because of its impartiality rules.

According to the BBC, the football element of the Sounds deal will end this week, following Lineker’s agreement to leave the broadcaster this weekend, after apologising for sharing the social media post.

The future of Match of the Day: Top 10, another Goalhanger production for BBC Sounds, which features Lineker, Shearer and Richards debating the greatest players and teams of the past, is also unsure.

The BBC said the position was that the “BBC Sounds licensing deal for The Rest Is Football will now end although The Rest Is History will continue on Sounds”.

Sources said this week’s Rest is Football episode would be the last new edition on Sounds. The future of the MOTD podcast is uncertain but any further episodes would not feature Lineker.

Goalhanger declined to comment.

Lineker is already missing out on an estimated £800,000 after the BBC ripped up his deal to present FA Cup games and the World Cup next summer.

The early termination of the 12-month podcast contract could have further financial implications.

Deal ‘nice for Gary but not essential’

But radio industry experts said Lineker’s plans to expand Goalhanger, named Audio Brand of the Year at last week’s Arias industry awards, would not be greatly damaged by the social media post row, or the loss of the BBC deal.

The Rest Is Football records over three million audio streams a month, plus another 2.5 million monthly views on YouTube. The majority of those streams are from Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube as well as clips shared across Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

Matt Deegan, founder of the British Podcast Awards, said: “People’s views on Lineker, pro or con, were baked into the Gary brand before the antisemitism row.”

Additional revenue paid out from the BBC for the number of downloads racked up “will be dwarfed by what Goalhanger make elsewhere. The deal was nice for Gary but probably not essential for any of the parties.”

Lineker said he would focus his attention on Goalhanger’s business expansion after leaving the BBC.

The Rest Is Football regularly ranks among the top five sports podcasts in North America and Lineker has identified the US as a major growth opportunity.

Following the US Presidential election, Goalhanger launched a US version of the Rest Is Politics, hosted by journalist Katty Kay and former Trump adviser Anthony Scaramucci.

Lineker was expected to host World Cup episodes of the football podcast from the US alongside his BBC presenting duties.

As a free agent, he could now be offered a World Cup role by a US or Middle East broadcaster.

It is unclear whether Shearer and Richards would join Lineker for World Cup episodes, with the BBC still putting together its punditry line-up for the tournament.

A Goalhanger spokesperson said: “We’ll certainly be covering the World Cup, though no production plans have been finalised yet.”

With Lineker as an influential figurehead, Goalhanger has become a challenger to BBC Sounds in the podcast business.

Its 13 brands have now passed the landmark figure of one billion episodes streamed, with monthly audio and YouTube streams of more than 45 million.

Lineker co-founded Goalhanger seven years ago with former TV and radio executives Tony Pastor and Jack Davenport.

The company’s most recent accounts filed at Companies House show its earnings rose from £590,000 in 2023 to £2.03m last year, indicating a £1.4m profit. Cash in the company’s bank account rose from £560,000 to £2.7m.

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