Wayne Rooney Launches New Show with Mark Goldbridge
Wayne Rooney is stepping even deeper into Manchester United’s media universe, fronting a new club-focused show alongside influencer Mark Goldbridge this season.
The former United and England captain will co-host Stick to United with Wayne Rooney, a Manchester United-dedicated spin-off that pairs one of the club’s greatest players with one of its loudest online voices. Goldbridge, whose real name is Brent di Cesare, has built a huge following with his The United Stand and That’s Football YouTube channels, amassing more than 3.8 million subscribers across the two.
This link-up doesn’t come out of nowhere. Earlier this year, Gary Neville moved decisively, buying Goldbridge’s channels for an undisclosed seven-figure fee and pulling them into his growing Overlap network. Neville launched The Overlap in 2021 and has steadily turned it into a multi-sport operation, branching out from football into cricket and rugby while keeping its fan-first edge.
Rooney is already a familiar face on The Overlap, regularly appearing as a pundit on Stick to Football. Now he steps into a more central role, fronting the new United-specific show alongside Goldbridge as part of a major distribution deal with Disney+. The streaming giant will carry 50 episodes of Stick to United and 40 episodes of Stick to Football across the season, a significant ramp-up in output for Neville’s brand.
Neville has been clear about what this tie-up means for his project, saying the partnership with Disney+ “expands our reach without compromising our identity”. It’s a calculated move: mainstream platform, fan-led content, big-name ex-pros, and one of the most polarising fan influencers in the game.
Goldbridge’s clips routinely explode across social media, fuelled by his outlandish reactions and strong, often divisive opinions on matches and managers. His style stands in stark contrast to the more traditional broadcast approach Neville came through at Sky Sports, and even to the long-form, conversational tone of The Overlap.
That contrast is striking given Neville’s past criticism of fan channels. He once branded ArsenalFanTV “embarrassing” after contributors tore into Arsene Wenger following Arsenal’s 3-1 defeat by Chelsea in 2017. The remark sparked a heated back-and-forth on Twitter, eventually leading to Neville appearing on ArsenalFanTV itself to explain and debate his views. Now, a few years on, he owns one of the biggest fan-led platforms around.
Rooney, meanwhile, is quietly assembling a busy media slate. The Wayne Rooney Show will return to BBC platforms this season, and he will continue his punditry work on Match of the Day. Add Stick to United to that schedule and the former striker is becoming one of the most visible voices in English football’s broadcast landscape.
A club legend, a fan-channel firebrand, and a global streaming deal under Neville’s umbrella: Manchester United’s off-pitch noise just found a powerful new amplifier.
