“Monday Night Football” may be familiar with heavyweight matchups, but this will be the first time the greatest player in NFL history will face off against the Deadpool.
This is Tom Brady tackling Ryan Reynolds and Hollywood FC going head-to-head against one of League One's big-money teams: Birmingham City v Wrexham.
No matter how much one embellishes what Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney recently described as an “absolutely massive game” at X, Monday night's showdown will be a big deal on and off the pitch, as two clubs that epitomise globalised football go head to head in a sold-out fixture that will be broadcast live on both sides of the Atlantic.
“It's a really high-profile game,” CBS Sports vice president Dan Weinberg said ahead of the Birmingham-Wrexham match, which will be shown on two channels as part of the network's four-year deal with the English Football League (EFL).
“We've covered all of Wrexham's games this season and will continue to support them wherever we can. Their celebrity influence and the high profile of Ryan and Rob mean they are a force to be reckoned with in the country and we're thrilled their profile is growing in the market.”
“The owners of these two clubs are very well-received in the country.”
Until recently, this England vs. Wales match would hardly have raised an eyebrow in Britain, much less in the United States, and the two clubs have little shared history apart from the Wrexham transfer record of £1 million that City paid for Brian Hughes in 1997.
But now, with celebrity power, plus Wrexham's successive promotions and Birmingham's shock relegation last May, the League One match has plenty of intrigue.
Deadpool stars Reynolds and McElhenney have built the former provincial club into a global sensation following the success of their Emmy-winning documentary Welcome to Wrexham, leading to two successful pre-season tours of North America.
Birmingham remains less attractive due to a 2023 takeover by Knighthead, an American investment firm led by co-owner Tom Wagner and backed by seven-time Super Bowl champion Brady, who has a minority stake.
Relegation at the end of their first season was, of course, unexpected, but it has had no impact on the team's lofty ambitions, which include purchasing 60 acres of land about a mile from St Andrews on which to build a new stadium.
Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady has become a minority owner in Birmingham in 2023 (Beatriz Velasco/Getty Images)
City clearly have no intention of staying in the third tier for long, judging by the 20 million pounds ($26 million) they have spent on transfers this summer – about half of which is believed to have gone to lure striker Jay Stansfield from Fulham, for which Birmingham paid between 12 million and 15 million pounds excluding add-ons.
To put this figure into perspective, the previous highest fee paid by a club in this division prior to the recent transfer window was the £4 million paid by Sunderland for Wigan Athletic striker Will Grigg.
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McElhenney, who is part-owner of Wrexham, will no doubt remember the deal as it featured prominently in the second series of Netflix show Sunderland 'Til I Die, which first gave the comedy actor the idea of ​​buying a football club.
The Wrexham squad have also been aggressive in recruiting, spending £2 million in the summer transfer window – an unprecedented expenditure for the club – and made possible by revenues that passed the £20 million barrier last season, with blue-chip sponsors such as United Airlines contributing significantly to the club's record figure.
Both teams are fired up for Monday's highly anticipated match-up, with Wrexham enlisting the help of Brady's long-time NFL rival, Eli Manning.
In response to Manning wearing the Welsh club's shirt, Brady posted a playful video to X and Instagram (where he has a combined 18 million followers) featuring one of his prized Super Bowl trophies, and ended the video with a plea for McElhenney to “teach the Wrexham fans a little bit about NFL history.”
See you on Monday! From BCFC @Wrexham Follow @VancityReynolds https://t.co/Ny87RekOPR pic.twitter.com/YyvkWmL5JK
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) September 14, 2024
AJ Swoboda, managing director of sports information company TwentyFirst Group, believes Wrexham is a good example of how to penetrate the US market in the long term.
“A celebrity like Tom Brady or Ryan Reynolds always helps bring attention to the club,” he says, “especially in a crowded market like the U.S. or in a foreign market.”
“But while celebrity owners generate short-term buzz, long-term fan engagement requires sustained sporting success and smart marketing strategies, primarily digital.
“The 'Welcome to Wrexham' documentary series has been key to growing Wrexham's global fanbase and the club's owners have backed these efforts up through substantial improvements in sporting performance.
He cites the example of Wrexham attracting 22 times more interest in the US than Birmingham, and 1.4 times more interest than Premier League neighbours Aston Villa, despite them having qualified for the Champions League, according to an analysis of Google Trends data over the past year.
“Tom Brady's allure and status should continue to drive new market interest in Birmingham City,” Swoboda adds, “but as with Wrexham, this attention needs to be translated into deeper fan engagement, as celebrity minority stakes are not as unusual as they once were.”
Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds became owners of Wrexham in 2020 (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)
As Wrexham co-owner McElhenney made clear when tagging Brady with the X, Monday night's encounter under the lights at St Andrews has all the ingredients to be a great game, but perhaps their biggest battle is yet to come.
In a recent report, “Connecting and Capturing US Fandom: A Guidebook for European Clubs,”According to fan data specialist CLV Group, 36 million U.S. soccer fans (44%) have yet to decide which team to root for, which CEO Neil Joyce estimates represents a potential $1.1 billion opportunity.
Premier League giants such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain are expected to take home a significant chunk of the prize money, but Joyce also believes celebrity-owned clubs such as Wrexham and Birmingham could also get a cut.
“The Wrexham story is incredible,” he says. “It's got that element of an underdog club, a club on the brink of extinction and then rising again. Americans love those kinds of stories.”
“Then there's all the measurables. You have United Airlines, one of the biggest airlines in the world, on the uniform. That kind of connection makes a big difference. I was on a United Airlines flight earlier in the summer and they were giving out (free amenity) bags along with Wrexham (pyjamas).”
“It's not just about the game, it's about the personalities of the people around the game. Consider how Taylor Swift brought a new fanbase to the NFL (her partner Travis Kelce plays for the Kansas City Chiefs) in the same way that Ryan Reynolds brought Deadpool fans to Wrexham.
“Given the EFL's new broadcast rights deal (with CBS), Wrexham will have much more exposure to American sports fans and they can take advantage of that. The same goes for Birmingham, arguably the greatest team in the history of the NFL.”
“Look at Tom Brady's investments in relevant sports. He owns (NFL team) the Las Vegas Raiders and he owns a WNBA team (Las Vegas Aces). Again, I want to leverage those fan bases and bring them on the journey in Birmingham as well.”
As Joyce points out, having CBS Sports as the EFL's new home will be key to any successful expansion into the US sports market, with more than 250 matches being shown live on the network per season for at least the next four years, meaning the potential exposure is huge.
CBS doesn't release viewership figures for individual games, but Weinberg said the company “is really pleased with the numbers we've seen in the first month.”
He believes a major factor in America's growing interest in the EFL is the promotion and relegation system that allows clubs to move up and down the pyramid – Birmingham, for example, dropped to League One last May but are now determined to quickly re-emerge.
“The U.S. market loves it,” Weinberg said, stressing how important it is for the network to showcase all 72 EFL teams. “It's compelling and dramatic.”
Birmingham's main focus this season is aiming for promotion to the Championship (Cameron Smith/Getty Images)
The EFL has seen a wave of American investors enter the league in recent years: by Christmas last year, 22 of the league's 72 teams had either full or minority investment from across the Atlantic, with 14 of those having received new investment since Wrexham's takeover in 2021.
“What Wrexham have done brilliantly is globalise and diversify,” says Laurie Pinto, an expert in football finance and club acquisitions. “It's easier said than done, but harder to do. (Wrexham director) Sean Harvey and the others should be given a lot of credit for that.”
“There are lots of people who think they can do the same thing. It's about working with partners outside the UK on a global scale and diversifying income streams.”
Asked if he expects to see more investment from North America in the coming years, Pinto replied: “Yes, there is a lot more interest. Most American owners are investing with a global perspective.”
“Sports in the US are expensive. It costs billions of dollars to buy a basketball, NFL or baseball team.”
With the United States joining Canada and Mexico in hosting the 2026 World Cup, sports media analyst Larry Johnson believes the new four-year television rights deal means EFL clubs are well placed to benefit.
“If you look at the viewership data from the last few World Cups, you can see the popularity of European sports[in the U.S.]growing,” he said. “La Liga, the Premier League and the Bundesliga have all seen significant viewership.”
“All arrows are pointing to the next World Cup and boosting the Premier League and EFL numbers. Wrexham have a chance to do something really special here, especially if they get promoted this year.”
“Wrexham already attracts big audiences. They played a friendly against Chelsea on ESPN, one of the biggest cable networks,[in July 2023]and the viewership was 300,000, which is comparable to a Major League Soccer match on the same network.”
It's perhaps inevitable in an era when the NFL and major league baseball play their regular season games in London, but there has been talk that the Premier League and EFL could do something similar by staging one-off matches in America.
Such a move would be hugely controversial: when the Daily Mail reported this summer that Birmingham and Wrexham were in talks about a potential move, Canadian-born Reynolds was quick to vehemently deny the story.
Wrexham's international profile led to a highly-anticipated friendly against Premier League giants Chelsea (Lindsay Radnage/ISI Photo/Getty Images)
Still, such discussions continue and CLV Group's Joyce believes they could help European competitions stay ahead of the pack in attracting fans.
“If European clubs could play a competitive game in the U.S., it would be much easier for them to make financial gains and try to capture a market that's worth more than $1 billion,” he said.
Talk of increasing attendances and realising potential is of course boardroom talk. On the pitch on Monday night, all that matters is three points.
Dan Scarr joined Wrexham this summer from Plymouth Argyle, who are set to win the League One title in 2023. He is a lifelong Birmingham fan and enjoyed three years as a player at St Andrews after making a late entrance into the professional world at the age of 22.
“It's insanity what's going on there,” the defender said. Athletic“It's great for the city and as a Birmingham City fan it's great for them too. The atmosphere will be great, it will sell out and they'll have the bragging rights of both owners being American and all that sort of thing.”
“But we want to stop the (title winning) parade. Everything else doesn't matter.”
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(Top photo: Getty Images)
