Wrexham’s historic triple promotion from the National League to the Championship was underpinned by the North Wales club’s freshly minted global appeal.
Rob McElhenney and co-owner Ryan Reynolds have built their success at the Racecourse Ground on a solid platform of content and marketing, turning a listing club into a household name around the world with a Disney+ documentary series as its keystone.
The club’s popularity in America has been a strategic success and finding a way to translate that into a viable Championship club could be key to the future prospects of McElhenney, Reynolds and the Allyn family as they look to take the Red Dragons to the top of the English game.
They’ll have to overhaul a couple of clubs if they’re to become America’s most popular club in the English leagues, including one that’s more than a little bizarre.
Speaking to Classic Football Shirts, the creator of ‘It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia’ revealed that Hollywood has already upset the apple cart when it comes to football club fandom in the United States.
“I have a friend who is part of an ownership group of a very large English club in a certain Premier League,” said McElhenney.
“They did some market research in the United States and were trying to figure out brand awareness. They went into the middle of the country and did a massive study and he said that he wanted to jump out a window when he got the data.
“He found out his club between ninth and 12th on the list. Number two was Manchester United, the biggest and most famous club in the world, give or take. Number three was Wrexham.”
Fair enough, and mighty impressive that Wrexham have already joined Man Utd on the coattails of the top club.
But that club isn’t Liverpool or Arsenal, or even the shiny new money and even newer money of Chelsea and Manchester City.
James McClean lifts the trophy after Wrexham secured promotion to the Championship (Image: Getty)
“Number one was AFC Richmond, which is the team from Ted Lasso.”
That’s ‘Ted Lasso’ the Apple TV+ comedy-drama series about an American college football coach – the American football kind – who gets a job as a manager at an English football club for reasons that don’t really warrant further explanation.
The lead character is played by Jason Sudeikis and the series has been running for nearly five years.
Even ‘Welcome to Wrexham’ can’t match that sort of fame, so the Red Dragons owners have their work cut out for them.
Then again, so does everyone else.
