Soccer
Gary Neville says ‘exceptional’ Wayne Rooney can enhance Manchester United show
Gary Neville believes pairing Wayne Rooney and Mark Goldbridge on a new Manchester United show as part of a deal between The Overlap and Disney+ reflects the changing media landscape.
‘Stick to United with Wayne Rooney’ will be co-hosted by the club’s record goalscorer and controversial online football media creator Goldbridge, starting on Tuesday ahead of the 2026-27 Premier League season.
It is part of Neville’s The Overlap network signing a sponsorship and distribution deal with Disney+, which will also see the hugely successful ‘Stick to Football’ podcast featuring Neville alongside Jamie Carragher, Roy Keane, Jill Scott and Ian Wright available on the streaming service.
“If you’d said to me a few years ago that we were going to get Mark and Wayne on together I would say that was unlikely,” former United captain Neville told the Press Association.
“But the way the world’s moving now in media the reality is it is changing dramatically and we’re moving with the times.
“One thing I know is that neither of them will hold back. Fans can see right through if you’re not truthful and honest.
“Wayne was exceptional during the World Cup and he’s got great authority and experience of where he’s been in the game. That’s everything for us, the idea of people who have never forgotten their roots of loving football and then collaborating with fans.
“Ex-players are there to bring that lived experience of being on the pitch but fans see it in a very different way, as do ex-coaches and journalists.
“The idea of bringing this different type of mindset together around Manchester United – and hopefully we’ll do it with other clubs as well – is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time.
“Wayne and Mark will respect each other, but I also think they’ll go hell for leather at times when they disagree.”
The Overlap network bought Mark Goldbridge’s YouTube channels in April.
Goldbridge’s ‘United We Stand’ is the biggest Manchester United fan channel on YouTube, while his ‘That’s Football’ platform looks at the sport more broadly – with The Overlap saying four months ago it has a combined audience of 3.7million viewers.
Disney+ will show The Overlap’s YouTube channel and on The United Stand’s YouTube channel, and Neville says “big plans” are in the pipeline for ‘That’s Football’ in late September or early October.
Neville said: “I was a sceptic of fans’ channels maybe eight, nine years ago, but certainly in the last four or five years we got to a point where we acquired ‘The United Stand and ‘That’s Football’.
“The Fan Debate programme in some ways moved the needle for us. It taught us that people enjoy the collaboration between fans who want to communicate about their club with ex-players, ex-coaches and journalists.”
Neville says he only founded The Overlap in 2021 because he wanted to see “if I could get better at interviewing people”.
The sports media business has since grown into a multi-million pound operation that achieved 2.2 billion views across all platforms last year.
UK commercial radio giant Global bought a majority stake in the company in January and the Disney+ deal, which will broadcast 40 episodes of ‘Stick to Football’ and 50 episodes of the ‘Stick to United with Wayne Rooney’, underscores The Overlap’s ambition to build the leading non-live football media platform in the world.
As part of the deal, Disney+ has commissioned additional special episodes of ‘Stick to Football’ that will be exclusively available on the streaming service for a limited period before being published on YouTube.
“It’s really exciting to be partnering with one of the world’s largest global entertainment brands,” said Neville. “It feels exactly the right fit.”
