How Ryan Reynolds, Rob McElhenney ended Wrexham's 15-year wait for promotion

The football world has been abuzz over how Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have ended Wrexham Association Football Club's 15-year wait for promotion.

On Saturday, the once fairly obscure Welsh club was in the headlines after an emotional 3-1 win over Boreham Wood. The victory gained the club a promotion into the English Football League for the first time in a decade and a half. It was an event straight out of an inspirational Hollywood movie with the two protagonists, Reynolds and McElhenney at the centre of the plot.

How did the Hollywood actors become Wrexham's owners?

Not many football fans outside of England have heard of Wrexham AFC until recently, and for good reason. The club was struggling to escape bankruptcy for the past decade until the two actors decided to buy it in 2020 for £2 million.

They have since invested about £10million into the club since then, and while they are still in the red, the club has been generating three times more income and the results on the pitch are massive, as evidenced by their recent promotion.

Back in 2011, the club was so hard up that they were forced to sell the Racecourse Ground Stadium to Wrexham Glyndwr University. After buying the club, its owners dished out an additional £3.67 million in order to repurchase the home stadium, as reported by Mail on Sunday.

Further investments following the club's purchase

Now that they have a club and that club has a home stadium, Reynolds and McElhenney decided to go all in. They are reportedly shelling out a whopping £80-90 million to develop the stadium's Kop stand, which is expected to have a capacity of 5,500 fans upon its completion. It will also feature modern offices and hospitality facilities for VIP guests.

After reacquiring the stadium, they invested £100,000 into a new pitch in 2021 but were forced to spend another £200,000 to returf it after the initial work was found to be unsatisfactory. Needless to say, not everything has been smooth sailing for the newbie football club owners.

Direct investment into the squad

Naturally, the most important part of building a successful club would have to be its players. While navigating the intricacies of running Wrexham and its facilities, Reynolds and McElhenney were also busy at the transfer market.

The fresh injection of funds from the Hollywood elite, who are worth a combined fortune of over £400million, meant that Wrexham now has the highest wage bill in Non-League history.

To put thing in perspective, the average salary for a non-league player is around £1,000 and £1,500 a week. In contrast, Wrexham's striker Paul Mullinshad was pirated from League Two with a contract worth £4,500 per week in 2021. The investment was worth it though, as he has scored 38 league goals this season, playing a key role in their promotion.

Apart from Mullinshad, Ben Tozer and Aaron Hayden also joined Wrexham from Cheltenham Town and Carlisle United respectively. Both are believed to be earning about £3,000 per week, still about twice as much as most other players around them.

Former Premier League goalkeeper Ben Foster even came out of retirement to play for peanuts just so he could help Wrexham achieve the dream of getting promoted.

The club is currently paying wages equal to an average League Two team, but the results have been phenomenal. In fact, they are even paying out bonuses worth £250,000 to each player for finishing on top of the National League.

Apart from the men's team, the new owners are also believed to be investing heavily in the women's team, and have promised to make sure that all areas of Wrexham AFC will be part of the growth.

Winning over the local community

Most local fans of clubs in the UK have been wary of welcoming foreign owners to their football teams, but Reynolds and McElhenney have made an effort to connect with the locals.

At their first anniversary as team owners, they treated locals to 365 Aviation gin and tonics at the The Turf Hotel which is located near the stadium.

Apart from a few cocktails, the actors have also been making personal donations to several members of the community around Wrexham. Reynolds even donated futsal kits to local youth team FC United of Wrexham.

Is the investment paying off?

The investments are staggering, and as the club fought to rebuild almost from scratch, losses were initially expected. According to The Sun, the club lost a total of £2.9million last season, but they could see that turn around sooner rather than later.

Their income already tripled since the Hollywood pair took over, and that is only expected to increase exponentially. Their season ticket sales went up from only 2,609 in 2019 to a mind-blowing 6,820 this season.

After their promotion to League Two, they will be receiving £1.1million from the EFL. Meanwhile, payments for TV rights to air their games would bring the club about £10,000 to £20,000 per game.

They are also featured in the highly successful documentary "Welcome to Wrexham" on Disney+, which is expected to bring in even more revenue.