Disney+ has agreed a major sponsorship and distribution deal with Gary Neville's football media company The Overlap, positioning the streaming giant in direct competition with Netflix's arrangement to host Gary Lineker's The Rest Is Football podcast.
The multimillion-pound agreement will bring The Overlap's flagship show Stick to Football, along with a brand new series called Stick to United with Wayne Rooney, to Disney+ subscribers, while both programmes will continue to be broadcast on YouTube via The Overlap and The United Stand channels.
Under the deal, Disney+ will stream 40 episodes of Stick to Football throughout the 2026-27 season, featuring the established lineup of Neville, Jamie Carragher, Jill Scott, Ian Wright and Roy Keane. A further 20 episodes will be commissioned exclusively for Disney+ subscribers before eventually being released more widely on YouTube.
The new United-focused programme will see 50 episodes air on the platform, co-hosted by Rooney and popular content creator Mark Goldbridge. Goldbridge, whose United We Stand channel is the largest Manchester United fan platform on YouTube, was acquired by The Overlap in April alongside his broader football channel, That's Football.
Rooney, Manchester United's record goalscorer, will now become a permanent fixture within The Overlap after previously appearing as a guest contributor. Disney+ has also secured rights to The Real Rooneys, a documentary chronicling his family life alongside wife Coleen and their four sons, which is set to premiere soon.
Neville, who co-founded The Overlap with former Sky Sports producer Scott Melvin in 2021, described the partnership as a natural evolution for the brand rather than a departure from its roots.
"We're immensely proud to be partnering with Disney+," Neville said. "It's one of the world's most iconic entertainment brands, and for us this is a unique partnership that feels right for everyone involved. What's exciting is that we're not changing who we are. Our community will continue to enjoy our content in exactly the way they always have through YouTube, while at the same time Disney+'s incredible global streaming audience will now be able to discover and enjoy it too. It's a partnership that expands our reach without compromising our identity."
Rooney expressed enthusiasm about taking on a more prominent role within the network. "Having worked with Gary, Roy, Jamie, Wrighty and Jill on both Stick to Football and The Overlap's Fan Debate show it was a natural next step to co-host a new show from The Overlap that is totally dedicated to everything Manchester United," he said. "I am delighted to co-host Stick to United with Wayne Rooney with Mark Goldbridge, which will be available to watch on The United Stand in addition to Disney+, where The Real Rooneys featuring me, Coleen and our four boys will premiere soon."
Goldbridge called the arrangement a landmark moment for independent football media. "This is a historic milestone for fan-led media and is exactly why our deal with The Overlap was so compelling," he said.
The Overlap has expanded rapidly since its launch, reportedly drawing 38 million monthly views on YouTube and accumulating 2.2 billion views across all platforms in 2025. Global, the media company behind LBC and The News Agents, took a majority stake in The Overlap in January before acquiring Goldbridge's channels three months later.
This latest agreement follows Netflix's own deal last month to continue streaming Lineker's Rest Is Football, presented alongside Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, for two more seasons. That show gained significant traction during its World Cup coverage, topping Netflix's daily charts in the UK throughout its 40-episode run and reportedly generating over seven million monthly streams last season—prompting Lineker to jokingly suggest his rivals were "languishing miles behind."
Based on reporting from The Independent and The Guardian.