What Rob McElhenney And Ryan Reynolds Learned After Buying A Soccer Team

Actors Rob McElhenney (Always Sunny in Philadelphiaa) and Ryan Reynolds (Deadpool) knew they were in over their heads when they purchased the Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC in early 2021, especially since they hadn’t even met in person before becoming co-owners of the fifth tier Red Dragons, but their hearts were in the right place.

With little to no Wrexham or general soccer knowledge, the duo’s desire to help the third oldest pro soccer team in the world get promoted to a better league trumped their lack of knowledge with the sport, city, and team.

McElhenney and Reynolds’ journey with the North Wales football club and working-class diehard fans, as well as their first in-person meeting, is chronicled in the compelling and heartfelt docuseries Welcome to Wrexhampremiering with two episodes on Wednesday, August 24 on FX at 10 pm ET, streaming the next day on Hulu. Subsequent episodes will roll out through early October.

Among many tough lessons learned in owning a pro sports team detailed on the show, the pair realized how difficult it was to part with athletes. Early on in their ownership, Rob and Ryan were tasked with moving on from a hard-working veteran player.

“Yeah, it’s really difficult,” McElhenney said via Zoom video alongside his co-owner, Reynolds, of the specific move and others they’ve had to make. “We’ve been very careful to make sure that we’re hiring the right people to make personnel decisions because we don’t know enough about football to make them.

“But that being said, the buck will stop with us if the manager will come to us. And so Phil (Parkinson) will say, ‘I don’t think anyone might have a future with us.’ It’s still really up to us to make the final call.

“So yes, we’re listening to everybody and taking everything into council. And we’ll always do what we’re advised to do. But that being said, we do have to make those final decisions. And it’s really, really difficult.

Rob, a Philadelphia native, picked the brain of a certain Philly owner to better understand what it takes to run a successful sports club.

“I had the pleasure of speaking with Jeff Lurie quite a bit about just ownership, in general, because he’s one of the best owners in professional sports and, obviously, he’s the owner of the Eagles,” McElhenney said.

“And he had great insight, really, really great insight in terms of what our role is or the way that he sees it. And it always seemed to make sense, which is that, again, he hires the right people to make the right decisions. And then his job is to foster the right culture. And luckily, for us, we have this 150 years of culture that was already built in. So we kind of look at our job is to help steward the 150 years of Wrexham’s history into the next 150 years.”

After screening the first five episodes of the docuseries, it’s apparent that Rob, Ryan and co. were able to find the right balance of incorporating the actors/owners into the show. The series had to be about the team and people of Wrexham and what turning the club around would mean to them, but the two would also be needed to drive the project and get eyes on it.

“Well, I think the early edict we had was that we wanted to be a part of Wrexham’s story. We don’t want to drag Wrexham into our story,” Reynolds said. “So I think if you’re kind of looking at it with those guardrails, it’s pretty self-explanatory.

“I mean, we don’t want to center ourselves so much that it becomes the ‘Rob and Ryan Show.’ But at the same time, we want to give our viewers insight into the absolutely remarkable and insane tightrope walk it is to attempt something this crazy and unexpected.

“This is the third oldest professional football club on Earth that plays in the oldest international stadium on Earth. It is serious business to each and every person. I don’t care whether you’re five years old in Wrexham or you’re 95 years old. There is a passion.

“Wrexham AFC is running through the blood of every person out there. So it’s high stakes right from the get-go. And centering the club is an easy decision because, no matter how you tell the story, that’s what’s going to happen in the long run anyway.”

Ryan, who also has an ownership stake in the companies Mint Mobile and Aviation American Gin, quickly learned that when it comes to heading a sports team, you can make the right moves on paper but that doesn’t guarantee immediate success.

“You can do everything, at least everything that you think is right from an operations perspective, and it’s unpredictable,” Reynolds stated. “That’s also what creates the magic. That’s what creates giant killers in the sport. Anything can happen.

“So there’s no part of us that rests on our laurels and gets too comfortable with any of this stuff. We’re all on the edge of our seats along with every single and, I mean, every single member of the community and Wrexham about this season and the seasons beyond it. There’s a lot of work to do, and there’s always going to be a lot of work to do. It’s evergreen.”