[Football] Wrexham Potential New Owners

Driver8 said:

I’ve just been reading that. Very odd. Surely someone’s having a laugh?

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Leekbrookgull said:

Have you ever been to Wrexham ?

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Bozza said:

...and he does have a few quid to play around with...

Ryan Reynolds’ Aviation American Gin is taking flight: Spirits giant Diageo is acquiring the brand for an estimated $610 million.

Diageo, the alcohol giant which owns spirits like Johnnie Walker and Smirnoff, announced Monday its agreement to take the “Deadpool” actor’s American-style gin under its wing. Reynolds will retain an ongoing ownership interest in the gin.

https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/ryan-reynolds-aviation-gin-sells-to-diageo-for-610-million

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Braggfan said:

I like the pair the are taking over, and good luck to them. But there's a nagging feeling though that we've seen it all before. Someone with no attachment to a club, buys it with the grand speech about how they will turn them into a footballing force. The reality of just how difficult it is to turn a club into a footballing force sinks in, the club fail to make swift progress and then the owners with no attachment to the club lose interest and disappear. I hope that doesn't happen.

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Poojah said:

Ordinarily, I'd agree with you. However, there is something slightly unique about this situation because of the parties involved. This is something I posted on another forum, but reading between the lines appears to be vaguely the plan. I think it's an interesting concept:

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I don't think there's a sinister motive behind this for a moment; neither Reynolds nor McElhenney have anything to gain by going in and 'asset stripping' Wrexham. As a business, they barely have any assets worth stripping anyway.

At the same time, I don't think this is about altruism either - if they wanted to be altruistic there are many worthier causes out there in the world (especially in these times) than Wrexham AFC. It's business, it's about money. So, how do you go about making money out of an unfashionable non-league football club from Wales?

The answer is, most people don't. But Ryan Reynolds and and Rob McElhenney aren't 'most people'; they're Hollywood movie stars. They have huge profiles globally.

And here's the key. All this comes at a time when the value of streamable TV content is rising exponentially, hence the recent explosion of football documentaries on the likes of Netflix and Amazon Prime. Such shows have been known to fetch upwards of £500k per episode. And what you've got here is a story not only incredibly intriguing to British football fans, but also to the massive potential audiences in the US and beyond who will be drawn to it for no other reason than who is involved. As a TV series, don't underestimate the massive, lucrative potential this story has.

In effect, what Reynolds and co. have done is taken the club off the hands of the supporter's trust for nothing, on the back of a pledge to invest £2m - money they will quickly earn back for the reasons above.

Managed correctly, I reckon this idea has the potential to easily self-fund Wrexham all the way to the Championship, where at the very least they have an asset worth significantly more than any net investment up to that point. At that point, I suspect they may seek further outside investment with a view to take Wrexham into the top flight, at which point the club is literally worth hundreds of millions. The story is complete, and they búgger off even wealthier than when they arrived having increased their own profile and had a few laughs along the way.

I personally think it's quite clever, and of course it only works because of the profile of the investors, but I think this actually amounts to a very low risk investment with incredibly high potential thanks to the unique parameters involved - fame, the current high value of streaming content, the cash cow that is the Premier League.

Whether this ultimately amounts to being a good thing for Wrexham fans in the long-term is debatable, because when you boil it all down this is not about 'them'. Like seemingly everything in football these days, it's about making money, creating personal wealth. No amount of Hollywood charisma can obscure that fact.

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