Gary Lineker's Goalhanger hits £37.9m and tops Britain's growth ranking

Gary Lineker's Goalhanger has done more than build a popular podcast franchise. The media production company he co-founded has now been named the fastest-growing business in Britain, after reporting £37.9m in sales in 2025. That is the kind of number that stops the room, especially in a media market where attention is plentiful but durable revenue is not.

The headline figure comes from the latest Sunday Times list of the 100 quickest-growing private companies, where Goalhanger posted an average annual growth rate of 321% over the past three years. The company behind The Rest is... podcasts said the sales jump was boosted by a rise in subscriptions and live events. In plain English: this was not just a hit show getting more listens, it was a business finding more than one way to monetize audience demand.

That matters because podcast companies have spent years trying to prove they are more than an advertising play. Ads can be lucrative, but they are often cyclical and tied to inventory, audience size, and broader media spending. Subscriptions and live events change the math. Subscriptions create recurring revenue, which is the holy grail for any media business trying to smooth out the bumps. Live events add a second engine, turning fandom into tickets, sponsorships, and a more tangible relationship with the audience. Goalhanger's growth suggests that if a media brand can get both of those working, it can start to look less like a content shop and more like a platform.

For context, the company sits in a part of the market where personality, trust, and consistency matter just as much as production quality. The Rest is... podcasts have become a recognizable package in the crowded audio landscape, and Goalhanger's performance shows how a repeatable format can scale when the audience keeps coming back. That is especially notable for leaders watching the broader creator economy, where the hardest problem is often not reaching people once but giving them reasons to pay again and again. The Sunday Times ranking puts a hard commercial frame around that idea.

The 321% average annual growth rate over three years also tells you something about the speed at which successful digital media can compound. Growth at that level usually does not come from a single viral spike. It typically requires product-market fit, audience retention, and a monetization stack that can carry the business beyond one channel. In Goalhanger's case, the source specifically points to subscriptions and live events, which suggests the company has been building multiple revenue lines rather than relying on one fragile stream. That is the kind of structure investors and operators in media, sports, entertainment, and creator-led businesses keep trying to replicate.

There is also a branding lesson here for companies that begin life around a famous name. Gary Lineker is the co-founder, and that gives Goalhanger immediate recognition. But recognition alone does not produce £37.9m in sales. The business has to convert that awareness into repeated consumption and paid engagement. In other words, celebrity may open the door, but format and monetization still have to carry the furniture. For executives, that is the interesting part: the brand halo helps, but the business model is what turns attention into a ranking.

The broader implication is that the media sector is still rewarding companies that can build direct audience relationships, especially when those relationships can be monetized outside the old ad stack. Live events in particular have become a valuable extension for media businesses because they deepen loyalty while creating a premium revenue stream. Subscriptions do something similar by making the audience explicitly choose to pay. Goalhanger's rise shows that these models are not just nice add-ons anymore. They can be the core of a fast-growing business.

For peers in media, creator-led brands, and adjacent consumer businesses, the message is pretty clear. If you can make people return, subscribe, and show up in person, growth can compound fast enough to land you at the top of a national ranking. If you cannot, even a famous name and a strong audience may not be enough. Goalhanger's £37.9m year is a useful reminder that in modern media, the best businesses are not simply heard. They are paid for, twice over.