No one under the age of 25 knows Match of the Day without Gary Lineker.
A TV era is ending with the Saturday night hot seat being vacated when the Premier League season ends in May, Sky News has been told.
The arrival of a new director of BBC Sport made this decision increasingly inevitable as Alex Kay-Jelski is said to be shaking up how sport is covered on air and online.
Few could have anticipated Lineker – the England scoring sensation – reinventing himself as a broadcasting institution, and becoming the heir to Des Lynam from 1999.
Few certainly could have anticipated his longevity on BBC One and the longevity of the football highlights format – with clips of games available online long before MOTD’s post-10pm kick-off.
There is no doubting how accomplished Lineker has become in the challenging live TV environment.
But off-air conduct became a growing source of friction between the BBC hierarchy and its highest earner.
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Choosing to use his social media platform to dish out political views demonstrated a social conscience.
But those posts – critical of the Conservatives and pro-Palestinian – sent out to millions of followers seemed to conflict with social media policies at an organisation that sees itself as a bastion of political neutrality.
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Ultimately they sparked one of the biggest political furores in BBC history when a comparison of the Tory government’s asylum policy with 1930s Germany led to him being taken off air last year.
And BBC colleagues walked out in solidarity.
He didn’t want to back down and scored a victory, allowing him to express views on issues as long as it did not cross into campaigning.
But his views on football also caused concern with criticism of the England team going beyond anything he would say on the BBC.
The expletive used about Three Lions performances at Euro 2024 came on his own The Rest Is Football podcast, generating weeks of coverage promoting the sideline.
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But the sideline has developed into a huge commercial success with podcasts from Goalhanger dominating the listening chart from politics to history and entertainment, beyond his own football shows.
The BBC could continue to buy in Goalhanger podcasts after Lineker presents his last World Cup for them in 2026.
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And soon a new generation might only know Lineker, not as the striker or BBC presenter, but as the podcasting millionaire.
