How to advertise on The Rest Is Football: what it costs, who buys, and how to book

The Rest Is Football sells its host-read inventory on a quoted, per-campaign basis, not off a public rate card, and roughly 9 in 10 of the ads on the feed are direct-response, according to Spotsnow. That's the number a buyer should lead with. Its anchor advertiser, Wise, has run roughly 7 to 8 ads on the show, so this is a coded-offer feed where brands come back, not a one-off awareness play. Spotsnow estimates all of this from tracked advertiser activity, not audience surveys.

Full profile: The Rest Is Football on Spotsnow.

Why The Rest Is Football is built for host-read direct response

The show is hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer and Micah Richards, three ex-players turned established football pundits who launched the feed with Goalhanger Podcasts in 2023. It sits in the financial services advertiser orbit as much as the sports one, which is unusual for a football pod and tells you who's buying.

Spotsnow attributes a direct-response share in the low 90s percent. That means codes, URLs and attribution, not brand impressions you can't measure. The format is the reason it works. The hosts run trivia bits and banter straight through the ad break, so a listener stays in the room when the offer lands instead of skipping. A host-read borrows that attention. Estimated reach is roughly 100,000 listeners per Spotsnow, an estimate rather than an audited count, and the audience skews strongly male and young to mid-adult, solidly middle-income, UK-first with international spillover.

The influence isn't confined to audio. Spotsnow puts the show at roughly 500,000 YouTube subscribers and roughly 340,000 Instagram followers, with TikTok and X on top of that. A read here spreads across a heavy video presence, not just the feed.

Who is advertising on The Rest Is Football

Spotsnow tracked roughly 59 to 68 distinct advertisers on the show over three months, a blue-chip mix spanning fintech, travel, retail and drink. Recognizable names include Wise, Hotels.com, LinkedIn, American Express and Netflix.

The anchor advertisers, broken down

Wise

Wise sells cross-border money transfers and multi-currency accounts. Spotsnow attributes roughly 7 to 8 ads on the show and estimated total spend over $20K, classified 100% direct-response. A UK audience that follows international football is already thinking about money that moves across borders, which is about as clean a fit as a fintech gets.

Hotels.com

Hotels.com sells travel booking and a loyalty rewards program. It's the most frequent of the top three, with Spotsnow attributing roughly 12 to 14 ads and estimated total spend of roughly $10K, nearly all direct-response with recurring flights. Away fixtures and tournaments send this audience abroad, so a travel booking offer tied to match travel writes itself.

Beer52

Beer52 runs a craft beer subscription club out of Edinburgh. It's the smallest of the three, with Spotsnow showing roughly 2 ads and estimated total spend of roughly $10K, classified 100% direct-response. A UK subscription box aimed at men who watch football on the weekend maps almost exactly onto this listener base.

The outlier

Not everyone here is chasing a code. Large produced brand spots from names like American Express and LinkedIn get inserted dynamically, buying reach and association rather than coded attribution. It shows a pure awareness objective can run on this feed too, just not the way most of the roster uses it.

All spend figures are Spotsnow estimates.

Why sports brands cluster here

Three former internationals telling you what they actually think carries a credibility a paid announcer can't buy. When Shearer or Lineker endorse a code, the listener hears a person who knows the game, not a scripted voice. Pair that with an audience that skews male, young to mid-adult and UK-first, and you get a room primed to act on an offer: fintech that moves money abroad, travel tied to away days, a beer box for the weekend. That's why financial services and travel keep showing up next to a football pod. The authority and the mindset line up, and the coded reads let a brand prove it converted.

How your ad could sound

Fuse Energy host-read on The Rest Is Football

The Fuse Energy read is a model host-read for this show. It opens on a Premier League trivia bit, the hosts play against each other, and the offer arrives on the back of the banter: sign up at the URL using code football, all uppercase. What works is the native hook. It fits the show's format so tightly it plays as entertainment, not an interruption, and the offer is a single memorable code with a clean handoff back into the episode. The line "Take control of your energy like it's part of your game plan" ties the product to the audience's frame of mind.

Two things to tighten. The code and URL come fast at the very end, after a long quiz, so the actual call to action can get buried under the chat and a half-listening fan may miss it. And there's no urgency or deadline on the offer, so nothing pushes a sign-up today. If you brief a read here, keep the native bit but land the offer twice and give it a reason to act now.

View what a great sample ad looks like here.

What makes a show like this convert

1. The format holds attention. Trivia and banter run through the break, so listeners are still there when the offer lands.
2. Host credibility carries the code. Endorsements from three ex-internationals read as opinion, not a scripted spot.
3. The audience acts. A male, young to mid-adult, UK-first base is exactly who fintech, travel and DTC brands want on a coded offer.
4. Brands come back. Wise's roughly 7 to 8 ads and Hotels.com's roughly 12 to 14 signal the math worked the first time.

The Rest Is Football in a nutshell

The listeners skew male, young to mid-adult and UK-first, solidly middle-income, with estimated reach around 100,000 per Spotsnow. Fintech, travel and drink brands already buy here, mostly on coded host-reads from Lineker, Shearer and Richards. The show is sold on a quoted, per-campaign basis rather than a rate card. If you're a direct-response buyer with a code and an offer, it fits; if you only want awareness impressions, the produced-spot lane exists but isn't the strength.