Today’s guest columnist is Jordan Gardner, a consultant for Twenty First Group in their Commercial Specialist Group.
Already, the Wrexham AFC story is a part of media-industry folklore: In November 2020, Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds and American actor Rob McElhenney, through the RR McReynolds Company LLC, bought the small fifth-tier Welsh club. Following the takeover, they announced a docuseries, which made its debut last August on FX and Hulu in the U.S. and on Disney+ in the United Kingdom. Welcome to Wrexham was an instant hit, garnering a 90% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and thrusting lower-division English soccer into the American mainstream.
The success from a media and content perspective has been well-documented. But there’s more to the project than a TV show. As an experienced soccer executive and one of the few Americans working in Europe, I believe it is important for people to understand how Ryan and Rob have built a successful soccer club while avoiding many of the mistakes that other Americans have made in the sport.
Investments in New Staff and Infrastructure
I’m a firm believer that soccer is driven by people, whether that is the players on the pitch, the coaches on the sideline or the fans in the stands. An often overlooked and crucial part of any organization is the people at the top, making the important decisions on a day-to-day basis. They can make or break any project. From my experience, Americans tend to rely too heavily on existing staffing when they acquire a soccer club in Europe, assuming the people previously in charge are aligned with new ownership. Rob and Ryan had the humility to understand what they knew and didn’t know about European soccer, and knew it was crucial to bring in people with experience to professionalize the club, which had spent the past 15 seasons in the fifth tier.
They brought in as advisors Les Reed (former director of football and vice chairman at Southampton), Shaun Harvey (former CEO of Leeds United and the English Football League) and Peter Moore (former CEO Liverpool FC). They next hired an experienced manager, Phil Parkinson, who had previously been at larger clubs such as Bolton, Charlton and Sunderland. Finally they hired an experienced CEO, Fleur Robinson, who had spent 26 years as commercial director of Burton Albion and previously sat on the board of the Football Association’s Women’s National League.
While most fifth-division clubs have little to no full-time infrastructure and staffing, Wrexham built a professional, experienced organization that rivaled that of clubs several tiers above them.
In June of 2022, the club announced an agreement with Wrexham Glyndwr University to purchase the freehold of the Racecourse Ground, the club’s home venue. This would allow a stadium expansion and the opportunity to host Wales international fixtures, as well as other sporting events in North Wales. The increased capacity would help the club meet the strong fan demand, as Wrexham sold out of season tickets within 12 hours for the current campaign. Any soccer club in Europe that owns its home venue can capture increased match-day and hospitality revenue, and host non-soccer events that are a huge driver of non-game-day revenue.
Internationalizing Media Rights
Global soccer is driven by television and streaming viewership. For clubs in the English Premier League, anywhere from 50-75% of their revenue comes from media rights. In the lower divisions of European soccer, however, media rights and international distribution are almost nonexistent. This was a problem for my most recent project in Denmark, where we unsuccessfully lobbied the Danish Football Association to allow international streaming of our matches for our growing U.S. fan base.
Wrexham had a similar issue, as the one media partner for National League content, BT Sport, had not previously allowed any international distribution or streaming of any Wrexham matches. After a period of significant lobbying this past fall via social media and at the league level, Rob and Ryan convinced both BT Sport and the National League to allow Wrexham matches to be streamed internationally. At the same time, ESPN agreed to stream their FA Cup matches in the United States as the club progressed through that tournament. This has already turned out well for ESPN; Wrexham’s near upset of Sheffield United on Jan. 29 was the most followed soccer game by users across all of ESPN’s digital platforms for the day.
While the visibility of Welcome to Wrexham is widespread, it was crucial for the future growth of the club for fans abroad to have access to the actual live matches.
Successfully owning and operating a European soccer club is not easy for anyone, let alone Americans who are not necessarily familiar with the intricacies of the sport or the business model abroad. Rob and Ryan have in many ways shown proof of concept that you can run a soccer club in a sustainable way, make good decisions and build a successful project. To be fair, the revenue coming in from Welcome to Wrexham goes far beyond what any club of their size could expect. However, Rob and Ryan have not solely relied on that revenue stream and have made a concerted effort to build a successful club from top to bottom.
What’s most important in my mind is that Rob and Ryan actually care about the club and the greater Wrexham community. That is clear from the amount of time they spend at the club, their presence on social media, and the pride you see when they wear Wrexham gear all over the U.S. They have built immense goodwill in the Wrexham community. I believe many other Americans currently invested or looking to invest in European soccer can look to their ownership as a model for how these clubs should be run.
Gardner is a sports executive, investor and operator whose work in European soccer includes experience raising capital, securing promotion and ultimately selling a club to new buyers. Jordan is a minority shareholder in Swansea City AFC, former board member of Irish club Dundalk FC, and former managing partner and chairman for Danish club FC Helsingør.
