Comments on football matches are now just as important as the match itself

A football match lasts ninety minutes. The business surrounding it, however, now runs for one hundred and sixty-eight hours a week. It is against this backdrop of disproportion that we should interpret Gary Lineker’s quip at the Edinburgh TV Festival, when he said he would gladly bring Roy Keane onto "The Rest Is Football". “He’s box office,” he explained. It is not merely a statement of admiration: it is almost a hostile takeover bid in the new football media market.

Keane is in fact part of the rival team, Stick to Football, alongside Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, Ian Wright and Jill Scott. Behind them now is Disney+, which has struck a multi-million deal with The Overlap to distribute dozens of episodes and new content. Neville, however, retains the intellectual property rights to the formats.

On the other hand, there is Netflix, which, after turning Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards’ “The Rest Is Football” into a daily feature during the World Cup, has decided to continue the partnership. The podcast has over seven million monthly streams and remained in the platform’s UK Top 10 for forty days.

For decades, the equation for sports broadcasting has been simple: whoever holds the rights holds the audience. Sky has built an empire by acquiring the rights to the Premier League, the Champions League and Formula 1. Live coverage was the unique content – the very thing subscribers were willing to pay for.

A second market is now emerging. The match itself remains irreplaceable, but surrounding it lies a vast landscape of analysis, controversy, clips, memes, behind-the-scenes footage, commercial activity and nostalgia. The broadcaster buys the ninety minutes. The new publisher is trying to capitalise on the remaining one hundred and sixty-six and a half hours.

Roy Keane does not own Manchester United v Liverpool. But every time Manchester United and Liverpool play, he possesses something that can be monetised: his thoughts on that match. Lineker, Neville, Carragher and Shearer are no longer just former footballers called upon to fill a television studio. They have become editorial brands. Neville has built The Overlap; Lineker is a co-founder of Goalhanger. Talent no longer just works for the media: it can become the owner of the media.

In Italy, we’d had a glimpse of something similar with Bobo TV. Vieri, Cassano, Adani and Ventola discovered that four former players in front of a webcam could attract attention without the need for images or broadcasting rights. But the subsequent collapse also revealed the model’s limitations: it relied primarily on the chemistry between the four individuals. When that chemistry broke down, so did the programme.

Of particular interest today is ‘Cronache di Spogliatoio’, as it is attempting to make the transition from a personality-driven format to an editorial system: daily podcasts, vodcasts, programmes featuring journalists and former footballers, and subscription-based content. Chora Media has also launched ‘Il lato B del calcio’, dedicated to financial statements, television rights, stadiums and business models: football covered beyond just Sunday’s match results.

The distance from England, however, remains evident. In Italy, the former footballer is still primarily a pundit: he fits into a framework created by someone else. In Britain, he is becoming a media entrepreneur: he creates the framework, owns the format, builds the community and then negotiates with Netflix and Disney as the owner.

Top-flight football will continue to sell the rights to watch a match for billions. But alongside that market, another is growing, one in which FIFA, UEFA, the leagues and clubs do not hold exclusive rights: the right to tell the story.