05 March 2024 , 20:13
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Wrexham's popularity shot through the roof in recent years thanks to Hollywood owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney's attempts to revitalise the club and city.
The Welsh club's newfound fame - with 'Deadpool' star Reynolds and 'It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia' creator McElhenny as its co-owners - is best seen with who the club have signed, such as Paul Mullin, Ben Foster and Jack Marriott. Despite the club's increased notoriety, it appears as if Wrexham are yet to make a significant foothold in one of the biggest remaining markets in the world: The United States.
Shaun Harvey, a director of Wrexham and an advisor to Reynolds and McElhenney since the two Hollywood stars took ownership of the club, explained the scope of Wrexham's popularity worldwide. Despite this, they still need to create a sizeable impact in the American market as an English Football League (EFL) club.
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"There's probably 5,000 US households that have an annual subscription to watch Wrexham games live," Harvey told The Guardian. "In isolation that might not sound like a lot, but it's a massive amount in comparison to the majority of other clubs in the EFL."
As it stands, Wrexham claim to have the largest international following of any EFL club. However, the former chief of the EFL did not disclose the proper viewer numbers of the 'Welcome to Wrexham' documentary, which has been greenlit for a third series, and calls it the club's "biggest commercial asset".
Still, if Wrexham and other EFL clubs want to start making headway in the United States, Harvey added that "access is absolutely key." In that regard, the 54-year-old believes games should be shown live and free-to-air in America.
Wrexham's US fanbase is smaller than expected, even with Reynolds' star power (Photo by Matthew Ashton - AMA/Getty Images)"From a market perspective the best rights deal, for the US or any other market, is one that makes matches free to air and accessible for anyone who wants to watch them," Harvey continued. "There's a balance to be struck between exposure and financial return so it makes sense to combine free-to-air with some direct consumer subscription type channel."
Currently, Wrexham's American fans can view their games on ESPN+ and iFollow, the EFL's global streaming service. Because of the different ways fans stateside can watch games, it makes it difficult for them to understand and know which streaming service to use to watch their beloved team.
With the issues currently plaguing Wrexham and other teams in the lower tiers of English football in terms of getting proper exposure, it remains to be seen if the international rights deal the EFL is in the process of negotiating for will provide any reprieve to the issues.
However, Harvey believes it will be up to the clubs themselves to use the pathway the Premier League had created to make their fanbases in the United States.
"The US is always going to be massively important to the EFL, because there's such a strong market and fanbase for football and the work has already been done by the Premier League to get a foothold there," Harvey said. "The challenge now is for clubs in the EFL to leverage that relationship and use it to build their own followings in the US."