Four years after Wales bought Wrexham AFC, Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have no regrets about their investment – despite the high cost of ownership.
Wrexham Red Dragons have recently gained a promotion and are now two levels away from the top level, known as the Premier League.
The past few years have been a crash course for Reynolds and McElhaney, both in the game of English soccer and the economics behind it.
The experience is captured in the FX docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham, debuting its third season on May 2.” The actors spoke with The Associated Press about alienating their inner fan with their jobs as chairman publicly and how the new episodes will be released closer. In real time
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AP: Has learning the business of sports changed you as a spectator?
McElhinney: No, I have to separate myself. I think the important thing about it is that it allows me to accommodate the Wrexham supporters, because they have a right to complain and be upset when things don’t go well because that’s their right.
I have that relationship with the Philadelphia Eagles. I respect all the players in both organizations, but (football) is a way I deal with my frustrations and worries and it’s something I look forward to on the weekends. It’s also something I feel passionately about that I express to my friends, not necessarily publicly.
As chairman of a football club, we have to hold ourselves to a different standard. We should have at least a degree of decorum in our exchanges in how we talk about things, because these are human beings, not characters on a screen. These are not players who mean nothing to us. These are our friends. These are our employees. These are people we have to treat with dignity, grace and respect, and recognize that this is their livelihood, so there is a very clear line of demarcation.
REYNOLDS: Just to piggyback on that, we have each other. We have the public face of it, but then we can take a moment when we’re frustrated or if things aren’t going as planned. You openly express your joy at the apparent success of the team. You want to make sure it’s being expressed to all the supporters that are out there.
Some have spread the ashes of their grandparents and parents on the ground where the club is playing. We have an incredible amount of respect for that tradition and that fan base and everything they’ve been through, all the ups and downs. But I’m always grateful that Rob and I have that sidebar where we both go, you know, “Holy (expletive), I can’t believe this is happening right now. I can’t believe we’re in the National League.” I can’t believe we just lost this club.
AP: With a show like this, viewers can search the Internet to see some of the results. Has there been pressure to finish the episodes quickly?
REYNOLDS: Absolutely, but what we’re most excited about in terms of season three is that as the episodes go on, we’re going to get closer and closer to continuity with the actual football season. So, when we’re in the middle of season three, you’ll see that we have no idea what’s going to happen. Just from such a macro 30,000 foot narrative perspective, we have no clue. What we are doing right now is to break. We have to promote. If we don’t, there is no real consolation prize. So we’re all in.
McElhinney: That’s really the most exciting part about season three is that it will coincide with the season finale. There was such a huge gap between the finale of the previous season and the documentary coming out. And we thought, ‘Well, if we’re going to continue the show, we want to innovate a little bit, to make it more exciting, so both the fans and the documentary filmmakers don’t know what’s going to happen. ‘ We’ll see the season finale and these last few episodes. We’ll actually have trucks in the racecourse parking lot with editing facilities, and they’ll take the footage and cut the show as quickly as possible and get it on the air, because we want it to be in real time. .
REYNOLDS: And if this season has taught us anything so far, it’s that it’s going to be a nail biter once again.
AP: Obviously the money that’s been put into the team has helped and it’s a great emotional investment. What will happen financially? Where are you?
Reynolds: Accountants don’t really want to hear about emotional investing.
McElhinney: You want to know how far in the red I am? This is quite important. It’s true that in the beginning when we asked our advisors if this was a good economic investment, there wasn’t a single person that I can remember who said “yes”.
It was more like, “Don’t.”
REYNOLDS: Run, yeah. There are examples in history of how this wasn’t the best idea, but we’re not in it to make money and we won’t be. (Laughs) I think we know how lucky we are to be in a position where it’s not about making money or any of that stuff. I mean, you have to be in a very privileged position to do that to begin with. But eventually, you know, as we go up the leagues, we’re going to need outside help to keep this club going. Another one of our great mission statements—this is something that’s still a big goal—is to create a sustainable model for a sports club like this and to be able to support itself after we’re dead and gone. To be allowed.
Credit : www.independent.co.uk
