Art Chansky’s Sports Notebook is presented by The Casual Pint. YOUR place for delicious pub food paired with local beer. Choose among 35 rotating taps and 200+ beers in the cooler.
Ryan Reynolds didn’t tell Blake Lively about buying a Welsh soccer team.
The Wrexham team that will play in Kenan Stadium Wednesday night against Chelsea was bought by movie star Ryan Reynolds, he of Deadpool and dozens of other films. He and partner, fellow actor Reb McElhenney, plopped down two-million pounds for the team that plays in the oldest home stadium in soccer and averaged about 2,000 fans. Until now.
Reynolds did not tell his wife, the actress Lively, about the purchase, and she initially went ballistic. Not now, since in three years the value of Wrexham has more than tripled to nearly 8-million pounds, according to investment bank Saxo. She has since become Hollywood’s biggest American-born soccer fan, largely due to her husband’s savvy marketing mind.
The success of Wrexham and its sponsorship deals with TikTok, Aviation American Gin, Expedia and VistaPrint have helped boost the club’s value. As far as publicity, Disney paid the team 2.6 million pounds to produce the “Welcome to Wrexham” documentary, streaming on ESPN, a show that capitalized on Ted Lasso’s success and was a major hit already renewed for a second season of eight episodes.
The doc increased Wrexham’s playoff audience by 858 percent, translating into 100 million homes worldwide watching what had been basically a minor league soccer club in the National League before moving up to the English Football League. Following that promotion, Wrexham’s social media account exploded, their Twitter growing by 1,040 percent, Instagram by 3,000 percent and TikTok, of course, going from zero to 1.3 million followers.
UNC has been hush-hush over whether Reynolds and Lively will be at The Old Lady in the Pines, which covered its synthetic football field with black tarp in order for the rolls of soccer turf to be delivered, installed and lined. Reynolds usually watches matches pitch-side, so look for him on what we call a sideline.
Apparently, the game is sold out, which means Wrexham will easily be playing in front of a crowd more than 10 times its usual attendance at what is called Racehorse, where ticket sales have tripled, along with the club’s value.
A visiting crowd of Wrexham and Chelsea fans, plus American curiosity-seekers, will be in town starting this week and will create a scene on Franklin Street second only to Carolina beating Duke in basketball.
If Reynolds (Lively) and McElhenney reach the ultimate goal of getting the Red Dragons to the Premier League, their investment will be worth a cool $2 billion.
Featured image via Associated Press/Jon Super
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