Disney+ secures rights to Gary Neville’s Overlap content in riposte to Lineker’s Netflix deal

Disney+ has secured the rights to broadcast The Overlap’s podcast content in a multimillion pound deal under which Gary Neville’s Stick to Football brand will compete with Gary Lineker’s Netflix-backed Rest is Football in a battle between two of the world’s biggest streaming platforms.

Under the terms of a deal that also includes title sponsorship, Disney+ will broadcast 40 episodes of Stick to Football this season featuring the regular team of Neville, Jamie Carragher, Jill Scott, Ian Wright and Roy Keane, as well as 50 episodes of a new programme, Stick to United with Wayne Rooney, which will be co-presented by the content creator Mark Goldbridge.

While both programmes will continue to be available on YouTube, Disney+ will also commission six additional episodes of Stick to Football that will be exclusively available to its subscribers for a limited time period before being released on YouTube.

The Overlap will retain the intellectual property to the rights, with Disney+ paying millions to attach its brand and distribute the shows on its platform.

Neville launched The Overlap along with the former Sky Sports producer Scott Melvin in 2021 and it has grown quickly to become one of the UK’s most popular football content channels, as well as branching out into other sports, with the Stick to Cricket podcast presented by Michael Vaughan and David Lloyd launched last year also proving popular.

The company said this year that it is attracting 38m monthly views on YouTube after achieving 2.2bn views across all platforms in 2025, and is continuing to expand.

The multimedia company Global, which owns the radio station LBC and podcasts including The News Agents, bought a majority stake in The Overlap last January, which was followed in April by the acquisition of Goldbridge’s YouTube channels, The United Stand and That’s Football.

“We’re immensely proud to be partnering with Disney+” Neville said. “It’s a partnership that expands our reach without compromising our identity.

“What’s exciting is that we’re not changing who we are. Our community will continue to enjoy our content in exactly the way they always have through YouTube, while at the same time Disney+’s incredible global streaming audience will now be able to discover and enjoy it too.”

Rooney will also join The Overlap stable on a permanent basis having previously made guest appearances, while Disney+ has also bought the rights to a new documentary about his family life, The Real Rooneys.

Disney+’s investment in The Overlap follows a similar deal announced last month involving Netflix and Lineker’s Goalhanger production company, whose Rest is Football series also featuring Alan Shearer and Micah Richards will be available on the platform for the next two seasons.

The Rest is Football appeared in Netflix’s daily top 10 charts on every day of its 40-day run of daily episodes filmed during the World Cup, with the US company opting to continue their partnership during the domestic season.

The Rest is Football obtained more than 7m monthly streams for its content alone last season, leading Lineker to joke that its rival is “languishing miles behind”.

Reporting from The Guardian contributed to this story.