Gary Lineker is well known for both his days as a clinical striker who never received a single red or yellow card, and for being a football broadcaster. However, he now has a significant business interest that extends well beyond football, and it is proving to be an enormous hit.
Lineker is a co-founder and major shareholder in Goalhanger, the media company that is behind some of the biggest podcasts in Britain. The company has grown rapidly in recent years, building a network of shows covering areas like football, history, politics, entertainment and money.
In 2026, that growth reached another level when Goalhanger was named Britain’s fastest-growing private company in a list published by The Sunday Times. It recorded £37.9 million in sales during 2025, with average annual growth of 321% over the previous three years and boasted 750 million full-episode streams in 2025.
How Goalhanger Began
Goalhanger is the media company behind some of the UK’s most successful podcasts, including The Rest Is History, The Rest Is Football and The Rest Is Politics. However, its story began with television and sports documentaries rather than podcasts.
Gary Lineker and Tony Pastor founded Goalhanger Films in 2014, producing documentaries about sporting figures and subjects. These included programmes such as Wayne Rooney: The Man Behind the Goals and Mo Salah: A Football Fairytale. The move into podcasting came in 2018 when Lineker partnered with Danny Baker to launch ‘Lineker & Baker: Behind Closed Doors’. While the production was basic, it was a useful first taste of the podcast world.
Then, in 2019, Goalhanger launched We Have Ways of Making You Talk, a Second World War podcast hosted by historian James Holland and comedian Al Murray. The idea came about after Pastor noticed the popularity of the subject in a Waterstones store, but a comparative lack of podcast coverage.
The arrival of COVID-19 and subsequent lockdown restrictions gave the podcast an unexpected boost. With people stuck at home, the show began increasing its output and reached an even larger audience. The experience convinced Goalhanger that podcasts could become much more than a side project.
The next major breakthrough came in late 2020 when Jack Davenport, who worked as an audio producer for Goalhanger Films, suggested creating a wide-ranging history podcast. Despite an awful unreleased pilot episode, Goalhanger persisted with the idea and The Rest Is History, hosted by Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, was born. Davenport later became part of the team as a full-time co-owner of Goalhanger Podcasts, which was incorporated in January 2022.
The creation of Goalhanger Podcasts as a new private limited company, came following the success of The Rest Is History. Knowing there was further room to expand, the group began creating new shows in different areas from 2022 onwards. Most followed a similar format, bringing together two people who were highly respected or well known in their field, had good chemistry and could discuss their specialist subject in a conversational style.
The Rest Is Football
The podcast most closely associated with Gary Lineker is The Rest Is Football, which he hosts alongside fellow former England footballers Alan Shearer and Micah Richards. This is the only Goalhanger production that Lineker helps present, and he has done so since it launched in 2023.
The show combines discussion of current football events with stories and experiences from the presenters’ playing and broadcasting careers. Lineker’s profile naturally gives the podcast access to major football stories, while Shearer and Richards bring their own perspectives from different generations of the game.
It has become one of Goalhanger’s most prominent shows and one that has landed an exclusive deal with Netflix. After providing 2026 World Cup coverage for the streaming giants, the two companies announced that the partnership would continue into the 2026/27 and 2027/28 Premier League seasons, with two episodes released every week
What Other Podcasts does Goalhanger Produce?
Lineker’s football podcast is only one part of the Goalhanger network. The company’s best-known programmes include the aforementioned The Rest Is History, hosted by historians Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook, and The Rest Is Politics, hosted by political heavyweights Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell. There is also The Rest Is Entertainment, presented by Richard Osman and Marina Hyde, which discusses television, film, music, celebrity culture and the wider entertainment industry.
Other major shows include The Rest Is Money, The Rest Is Science, The Rest Is Politics: US and The Rest Is Classified. However, Goalhanger does not insist on the ‘The Rest Is…’ naming format for every single programme, as they are also responsible for the likes of Empire, We Have Ways of Making You Talk, The Book Club and Journey Through Time.
This variety is an important part of the company’s business model. Rather than relying on a single successful programme, Goalhanger has built a portfolio of podcasts aimed at different popular interests and attracts big audiences, both young and old.
How Much Is Gary Lineker’s Goalhanger Stake Worth?
Lineker is both a founder and significant shareholder in the company. Companies House records show that Lineker is a person with significant control of Goalhanger Podcasts Ltd, with between 25% and 50% of the company’s shares and voting rights.
How much Lineker actually earns from the now highly profitable company is not public knowledge, but needless to say, this has been a shrewd venture on his part. Goalhanger has established itself as a major player in the podcast industry, and its continued growth suggests it could remain a major force for years to come. The growth of the company has come at a great time too, given that Lineker waved goodbye to a £1.35m annual salary he earned at the BBC following his departure in 2025.
Goalhanger’s 250,000 Paying Subscribers
Advertising and sponsorship are not the only ways Goalhanger makes money. The company has developed a membership model that allows listeners to pay for additional content and other benefits. Goalhanger passed 250,000 paying members in 2026. That gives the company a substantial recurring revenue stream alongside advertising, sponsorships, events and other commercial activities.
The company has also expanded into live events and other formats, giving its most successful shows opportunities to generate revenue away from podcast feeds.
The Chernin Group Investment
One of the more recent major developments in Goalhanger’s rather prolific history came early in 2026 when The Chernin Group, the US media and sports investment firm, took a minority stake in the company. The deal was notable because Goalhanger had not previously taken external investment. TCG’s funding therefore represented a significant change for the business and highlighted their desire for overseas expansion.
As part of the deal, Greg Bettinelli, a TCG partner, joined the Goalhanger board. The investment is designed to help Goalhanger accelerate its expansion in the United States, develop new IP from its successful shows, and take its ideas into new formats, platforms and markets.
Time will tell if Goalhanger can replicate its UK success on the other side of the Atlantic but no matter what, we expect Lineker’s empire to keep on growing!
