Gary Lineker has admitted that he would feel “slightly concerned” if he were still working in football at the BBC today, given the substantial cost involved in securing rights to broadcast major tournaments.
Lineker, 65, stated that he believes there still remains “a place” for terrestrial broadcasting, adding that television networks must carry on adapting to a changing industry.
The former England captain, who fronted Match Of The Day for more than 25 years, departed the BBC in May last year following criticism over the way he expressed his political opinions on his social media accounts.
Speaking to ITV News, he said: “Things are changing and obviously the BBC, ITV, etc, need to work out and change with it to a degree, which I think they are doing – but I still think there’s a place at the moment.”
Lineker added: “But things do change and it will be interesting to see, particularly the area of sport, whether they can still justify having the rights for major tournaments.
“Things will shift in that sense as well. So sporting rights, I think I would be slightly concerned if I was still at the BBC doing football, in terms of them being able to afford the rights for major tournaments.”
The Broadcasting Act 1996 requires Ofcom to designate a list of so-called “crown jewels” to ensure that coverage of certain major sporting events, such as the Olympic Games and the men’s and women’s football World Cups, is widely available to audiences across the UK for free.
BBC Sport made a deal to share the cost of live coverage for the men’s Fifa World Cup in 2026 and 2030 with ITV.
Lineker said: “At the minute, one of the reasons that the terrestrial channels can afford it is because there’s not really a marketplace because of the rules that we have, the listed rules that certain games, World Cup games, etc, have to be on terrestrial television.
“So I think that’s something they’ll be wary of in the future.”
Lineker co-founded the media production company Goalhanger, which creates The Rest Is… series of podcasts.
In June, the business was named as Britain’s fastest-growing private company after recording £37.9 million in sales in 2025.
Lineker said: “The whole business has been an unqualified success really and I’m not quite sure it’s how it’s happened, but it’s subtly joyous and it’s probably given me as much satisfaction as anything I’ve done in my life.”
He added: “There’s nothing like football, right, there’s nothing like scoring a big goal in a big game. You cannot replace that, but the reason it was like that was because you never knew whether it would happen again.
“But aside from that feeling of exhilaration, this has probably given me more satisfaction than anything.”
