In September 2020, American actor Rob McElhenney and Canadian-American actor Ryan Reynolds announced their intention to buy Wrexham A.F.C., a Welsh professional association football club based in the Racecourse Ground in Wrexham, north-east Wales in the United Kingdom.[7] The company RR McReynolds was set up by November 2020, and the deal was completed in February 2021. Wrexham A.F.C. as of purchase, played in the National League, the fifth tier of English football, below the Premier League and the three tiers of the English Football League system.[8][9]Welcome to Wrexham Season 1 Download
At the time, the non-league football team was described to be “struggling”.[10] Following the suspension of the 2019–20 National League in March 2020, following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom, Wrexham A.F.C. was said to have furloughed staff and players, and admitting the club was experiencing a “threat to the[ir] continued existence”.[11] Prior to the pair’s purchase, Wrexham A.F.C. was owned by the Wrexham Supporter’s Trust, a fan-operated company, since 2011. The trust approved McElhenney and Reynolds’ £2 million takeover by 98.6%.[12][13][14][15] Following the purchase, Wrexham A.F.C’s Twitter account posted a skit, involving McElhenney and Reynolds performing a parody advert for Ifor Williams Trailers, the then only sponsor for Wrexham A.F.C.[16] The trust initially rejected any offer of a takeover by an intermediary but “soon changed their minds” following the revelation that it was McElhenney and Reynolds.[2]Management before 2011, was described to have “mismanaged the club to the point of near collapse”, with fans “starting to fall out of love with it”, with the club served with a winding-up order in 2011.[12][17]The series is said to be inspired by Sunderland ‘Til I Die, which prompted McElhenney to be interested in buying an association football club,[12] as well as the influence of Humphrey Ker who was also interested in purchasing a club.[18] Ker was stated to have been always watching association football in the writer’s room of McElhenney’s show Mythic Quest, causing McElhenney to become interested in association football, particularly “the idea of promotion and demotion”, which McElhenney described was “incredible to me”.[19] McElhenney also joked that he only had “TV money” and needed “super hero, movie star money”.[19] Ker described himself as “Rob and Ryan’s representative” to the club as the pair’s inside operations person.[19]