Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney paid $2.5 million for the world’s third-oldest football club.
But the team is in the 5th division of the English football pyramid and has almost no chance of making it to the Premier League.
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney purchased Wrexham AFC, a 5th-tier club located in a blue-collar town ~25 miles outside Liverpool & Manchester.
Wrexham is owned by the fans, so Reynolds & McElhenney met with 2,000+ supporters (on Zoom) in 2020 and made an offer.
They agreed to invest ~$2.5m in the club’s players and facilities & even signed a 25-year stadium lease in Wrexham so fans knew they wouldn’t move the team.
But the real play was a “Netflix-style” docu-series that tracked their purchase, investment in the club, and the team’s journey back to prominence.
It’s called “Welcome to Wrexham.”
Welcome to Wrexham debuted on FX in August.
The show received a 97% audience score & was immediately greenlit for season two.
The club probably made good money on the deal:
~$400k per hour of content
+ 8-part series
= ~$3.2m in revenue
Wrexham AFC has signed kit sponsorship deals with several companies:
• TikTok
• Expedia
• Vistaprint
• Aviation American Gin
And the number of fans buying season tickets has nearly tripled:
2019: 2,609
2021: 5,892
2022: 6,820
Contents culled from @JoePompliano
