The purchase of a minor Welsh football team by Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney is repeatedly portrayed as the last word Cinderella story, not least within the pair’s glossy Disney+ documentary wherein they try to revive the hopes of a former mining town .
But the discharge of the League Two club current accounts is a reminder of the financial clout the actors brought with them to assist Wrexham consistently crush their closest opponents.
In the 12 months to June 2023, Wrexham AFC posted losses of £5.1 million ($6.4 million), a giant increase on the figure of £2.9 million ($3.7 million) in 2022.
These losses were financed from the deep pockets of Reynolds and McElhenney. The club currently owes the pair £8.98 million ($11.3 million), with the rise in debt over the past 12 months matching Wrexham’s losses.
“These losses were deemed necessary to enable the club to maximize its full potential in the shortest possible time,” the club said when announcing the outcomes last week, adding that there was no immediate rush to refinance the pair’s loan to be paid back to their owners.
In fact, the mounting losses are largely attributable to an enormous increase within the club’s salary expenses.
Wrexham’s wage bill rose by greater than 70% to £6.9 million ($8.7 million) in 2023.
This is despite the club only making 10.5 million kilos ($13.2 million) in revenue last 12 months.
“Movie Star Money”
The It’s all the time sunny in Philadelphia Star said he was fascinated by the pyramid format of the English soccer system, which could be very different from the franchise model in U.S. sports in that it allows any club to achieve promotion to the highest flight.
However, McElhenney joked that he needed “movie star money” to make his dream of pulling a team through this league pyramid a reality, and so called on Reynolds, who can also be a hugely successful entrepreneur, to assist finance the project to assist.
The pair used their star appeal and comedic skills to create viral social media videos and an Emmy Award-winning documentary series. Welcome to Wrexhamwhich they’ve was sponsorship deals that Wrexham’s rivals could only dream of.
United Airlines is Wrexham’s front-of-shirt sponsor, replacing a previous agreement with TikTok.
However, revenue from these channels still appears to be well below the team’s expenses.
Wrexham signed players, including star strikers Paul Mullin and Ollie Palmer, from teams playing in a league two tiers above Reynolds and McElhenney’s club.
To attract them and others, the pair paid salaries well above the market rate of the National League division wherein Wrexham played last season.
Opposing fans complain that Reynolds and McElhenney’s behavior, despite their popular public profiles, is anti-competitive and more consistent with the much-maligned state-sponsored operations within the English Premier League.
Having gained promotion to League Two last 12 months, Wrexham are actually heading in the right direction to achieve promotion to League One again because the club sits in certainly one of the automated promotion places towards the top of the season.
Despite some controversy over the mountain of cash that has flowed into the club lately, there may be growing expectation that the club will turn into self-sufficient as football operations are regulated.
The club’s revenue doubled last 12 months, largely attributable to a pointy increase in retail sales related to jersey sales.
Signing off its financial results, Wrexham teased that it expected significantly higher financial results on the conclusion of this football season, with proceeds from the Welcome to Wrexham Documentary that goals to bring the club closer to the highest of this pyramid.
