ITV wants Gary Lineker to front Saturday night Premier League highlights if it poaches the rights to top-flight football from the BBC, insiders claim.
The BBC’s rival is mulling a raid for the £133m a-year terrestrial highlights package when an auction for the 2025-2028 Premier League domestic rights begins later this year.
ITV bosses plan to capitalise on Lineker’s rocky relationship at the BBC after last week’s row over his tweets by offering him a big-money transfer deal to become the star attraction of its football coverage, industry figures told i.
Landing a match of the day-style highlights programme would turbo-charge ITV’s new ITVX streaming service.
Insiders believe the BBC, facing licence fee cuts, will struggle to match an increase on the £400m deal it committed to three years ago when bids for the new contract are submitted.
Although fears that Lineker could quit the BBC over the migration storm have eased after he agreed to return to work, his contract ends in 2025, following the conclusion of the broadcaster’s current Premier League deal.
“ITV wants Gary,” an insider said. “If ITV poached the Premier League highlights from the BBC, it would be a coup to get him to present.”
ITV would be able to more than double Lineker’s BBC salary of up to £1.4m and he would have more latitude to tweet on political matters on a network that is not funded by the licence-fee funded.
ITV currently owns the broadcast rights to both the men’s and women’s World Cups, the Euros championships and the FA Cup. The commercial network could also offer Lineker the chance to front a range of shows from documentaries to entertainment.
Lineker will not be short of opportunities when his current BBC deal winds down. Roger Mosey, a former BBC head of TV News and Sport, said “there has been a widespread belief that his current contract with the BBC would be his last”.
“Lineker could go to Sky, or Amazon could make Gary the face of its football offering if it beat Sky to a big package of live Premiership games,” one sports TV marketing expert said.
The BBC could offer the 62-year-old a looser contractual relationship, one insider suggested. A plum role in the gift of bosses is presenting midweek men’s Champions League highlights, which will be broadcast on the BBC for the first time from the season 2024/25.
Lineker could still be offered the chance to front major events like the World Cup and Euros even if he no longer presented Match of the Day.
Freed from the BBC, the ex-England striker could front a subscription podcast for Spotify or Apple, covering topics from sport to politics.
He is already a partner in Goalhanger Productions, a TV and audio company which makes sports documentaries and podcasts, including Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s The Rest Is Politics.
ITV previously blew Match of the Day out of the water when it poached Premiership highlights – along with the BBC’s star sports presenter Des Lynam – for the seasons between 2001 and 2004.
However its Saturday night show was widely criticised and viewers welcomed the return of Match of the Day on BBC One, with Lineker proving himself a more-than-able presenter.
ITV was contacted for comment.
Lineker returned to social media on Tuesday when he questioned Twitter owner Elon Musk after a threatening message was sent to his son in the wake of the sports presenter’s row with the BBC.
The former footballer, who was reinstated as host of Match Of The Day on Monday, reshared a private message which said his eldest son, George, should to be “burned at the stake” for his public support of his father.
Lineker and other employees of the BBC have received abuse online following the ex-England striker’s brief suspension as host of MOTD at the weekend.
It came as those at the broadcaster were invited to lunchtime sessions in Salford on Tuesday so director-general Tim Davie and chief content officer Charlotte Moore could “hear from staff, take questions and reflect on the events of the last few days”.
The abusive message, from an account with only one follower, described George as a “mug” for “sticking up” for what his father said, adding: “You need to be burned at the stake.”
Lineker wrote: “Is this acceptable @Twitter @elonmusk? And I don’t mean the grammar.”
Earlier in the day, George had tweeted: “Social media’s mad isn’t it. Over the last few days, on insta – never had so many nice messages. On Twitter – never had so much abuse.
“It’s not even anything to do with me.”
On Tuesday, Ofcom chief executive Dame Melanie Dawes told a Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee meeting that it had been a “really difficult episode for the BBC” but that she hopes “they can find their way through it”.
She said the BBC’s social media guidelines are not a matter for the media watchdog but for the broadcaster’s board to “draw that line” in order to safeguard the BBC’s reputation.
Shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell also told the Commons that Lineker being taken off air for tweeting something “the Government doesn’t like” sounds like “Putin’s Russia” – a comparison culture minister Julia Lopez described as “disgraceful”.
Football coverage on BBC TV and radio was hit across the weekend as pundits, presenters and reporters – including Alan Shearer, Ian Wright and Alex Scott – joined a walkout in solidarity with Lineker.
The BBC subsequently apologised and reinstated him as host of MOTD, while Mr Davie announced a review of social media guidelines at the broadcaster.
The row was sparked after Lineker was taken off air for a tweet comparing the language used to launch a new Government asylum seeker policy – Illegal Migrants Bill – to that of 30s Germany.
On Monday, BBC sports presenter Mark Chapman returned after boycotting his weekend shows and noted that some staff members had been “at the receiving end of abuse for just doing their jobs”.
He added: “It is disgusting and unfair, and it is ironic that, in a row over impartiality, we have all been seen to be taking sides, and I feel there are lessons to be learned by all involved.”
Mr Davie had sent an email to all staff in which he said: “I want to acknowledge how challenging the last few days have been and to say how grateful I am for all your work during this weekend’s disruption.”
Twitter and the BBC have been contacted for comment.
翻译：
Adrien Brody's acceptance speech was everything that's wrong with the Oscars