A lucrative summer of sponsorship deals with the likes of United Airlines and Stok Cold Brew Coffee partly explains why club insiders believe such a figure may well be achievable in their first season back in the EFL.
Wrexham’s turnover this season could hit £20million ($26m), a remarkable sum that would eclipse the income levels of even some established Championship clubs.
A lucrative summer of sponsorship deals with the likes of United Airlines and Stok Cold Brew Coffee partly explains why club insiders believe such a figure may well be achievable in their first season back in the EFL.
There is the upcoming second series of Welcome to Wrexham, the documentary that has put the club bought by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney on the global sporting map.
And then there is the two-week tour of the United States featuring Phil Parkinson and his players. Friendlies against Chelsea and Manchester United have sold out as supporters in North America finally get their chance to see Paul Mullin, Elliot Lee and co play live.
Wrexham will face the second-string sides of LA Galaxy and Philadelphia Union — the MLS duo’s first teams are this month involved in the expanded Leagues Cup, competing against their Mexican counterparts from Liga MX — before flying home ahead of the new season.
It is not your usual itinerary for a fourth-tier club who have spent the past 15 years in non-League. But, as that projected £20million turnover figure illustrates, Wrexham are not your usual League Two outfit.
This much was brought home to Shaun Harvey, a key advisor to the board since Reynolds and McElhenney first considered buying the club in 2020, when attending this summer’s inaugural TST tournament in Cary, North Carolina.
“The support for the club was mindblowing,” he says about a four-day competition in June that saw half of the 30,000 tickets sold to fans backing a team of former Wrexham players.
“People had travelled from all over America to go to the TST Tournament and see Wrexham play. All on the back of the documentary. It was unbelievable to be sitting there and thinking, ‘I’m in North Carolina and there’s more people shouting for Wrexham than any other team’.
Harvey has led Wrexham’s negotiations with the various agencies and governing bodies over a tour that has been some time in the making.
“When Rob and Ryan took over, one of the objectives away from delivering success on the pitch and benefiting Wrexham as a town was to grow the global appeal of the club,” Harvey says.
“There were a couple of attempts to get to the U.S. before this summer. In the first close season after Rob and Ryan had come in (2021), we did speak to Philadelphia Union about going over for a game.
“But the travel restrictions due to COVID-19 were extensive and it quickly became apparent it wasn’t going to be practical. The following summer, we again spoke about playing Philly.
“That time, though, the lack of certainty over where we would be playing the next season (Wrexham lost in the 2021-22 National League play-offs), plus the vaccinations status of the players and so on, made things too complicated.
“This summer has been very different. Thanks to the documentary being a great success, suddenly a lot of clubs now want to play Wrexham. That meant opportunities were coming to us.”
Just as with the documentary — Wrexham do not receive a fee for the show but use the global exposure to drive commercial operations and lure blue-chip sponsors like United Airlines on board — the tour is expected to bring only a modest direct boost to club coffers.
“The tour is more an investment in the future,” says Harvey. “Primarily, the objective is to continue building the profile and fanbase, rather than an immediate financial return. This then comes further down the line, by that fanbase becoming part of the club’s journey.”
Phil Parkinson chuckles when asked about his first pre-season as a manager, exactly 20 years ago when in charge of League One side Colchester United.
“It was a bit different to this summer,” he says. “There was no trip away. Teams from the lower divisions didn’t really do that back then. What I most remember is turning up to train at Essex University on our first day and the ground being absolutely bone dry. No one had watered it for ages.
“I’d got the job a few months earlier (he steered Colchester away from relegation trouble after being appointed in late February 2003) and decided to let quite a few players go.
“The problem was we hadn’t managed to get the replacements I wanted through the door in time for pre-season, meaning we had a pretty threadbare squad to work with.”
Parkinson, flanked by Reynolds, left, and McElhenney (Photo: Martin Rickett/PA Images via Getty Images)
Parkinson has no such fears about his Wrexham squad’s readiness for the coming campaign. Huddersfield Town defender Will Boyle is the only new face, with the club prepared to be patient, safe in the knowledge that recruitment in previous transfer windows means the squad is equipped to compete in League Two.
“It is vital we get the right fit,” the 55-year-old Parkinson says. “Not just in terms of how they play and their quality but also as people. This is a unique experience to be part of. They have to be the right ones to fit in with a very, very tight group of lads who have driven each other on.”
Where Parkinson is stepping slightly into the unknown is over the length of the tour and the destination. The furthest he has taken a squad in the past is Sweden in 2016 as Bolton Wanderers manager, while his four pre-seasons at the helm of Bradford City brought three consecutive training camps in Ireland followed by Scotland.
“We’ve spoken to a few people who have been on this sort of trip before,” he says. “Both on the medical side and the coaching side at other clubs. Just to pick their brains on what works and what doesn’t.
“Jet lag is one of those things we need to be aware of. That’s why a lot of planning has gone into the trip. There is a lot of travelling but the opportunity to go to the States — both commercially for the club and as an experience for this group of players and staff — is a fantastic one.”
Parkinson and Harvey liaised closely during the planning. Training facilities and proximity to the team hotel formed a big part of the early talks, with both realising the importance of the next two weeks when it comes to being ready for the August 5 opener against MK Dons.
To aid that process, preparations have been rejigged since the squad returned for pre-season training towards the end of June. There was an in-house game and then a behind-closed-doors friendly against Bala Town was arranged before the squad flew out to North Carolina on Sunday. “We wanted to get just the right amount of minutes into each player before the trip,” says Parkinson. “This is quite a different pre-season, in that we are away for two weeks, so we had to maximise the benefits of our time in the UK.”
Planning for the tour has had to be equally flexible. The July 25 meeting with Manchester United at San Diego’s 51,000-capacity Snapdragon Stadium was the first to be confirmed this year after negotiations had begun in the autumn.
A publicity video featuring a video call between Wrexham’s Hollywood owners and Sir Alex Ferguson followed, which ended with Reynolds panicking and hanging up on the silent managerial great who then reveals the pair had been on mute throughout.
In terms of Wrexham’s programme of fixtures across the Atlantic, former EFL chief executive Harvey says: “We were adamant that, if playing Manchester United in San Diego, we needed another game on the west coast. That led us to Los Angeles — which is where Rob lives — and the Galaxy.
“Having had two aborted attempts with Philly Union, there was no way we weren’t going to play them this time if it could be scheduled. It is also on its way back from the west coast.
“We always wanted four games, thinking that was just about right for the distance we are travelling and having the players together. Then the opportunity to play Chelsea came up, primarily because they were contracted with an agent who believed Wrexham was a lot more attractive a proposition than our league status would suggest.”
Even allowing for how the United XI is likely to be made up of Under-21s players due to the first team facing Real Madrid in Texas the following day, landing fixtures against two of the Premier League’s biggest names raised plenty of eyebrows.
So, too, did how the Chelsea and United fixtures are being played in stadiums boasting a 50,000-plus capacity. “Our stance was they must know the market,” says Harvey. “The Manchester United game sold out very quickly.
“We don’t know yet what numbers will be there to support us or the opposition. And I’m not going to say we have more supporters than Manchester United in America.
“But it will be fascinating to see the makeup of the crowd. How many are there to watch the Premier League team? And how many to watch Wrexham?”
The players have had a taste of the spotlight that seems to follow the club’s every move on this tour, having spent five days celebrating promotion in Las Vegas last May. For Parkinson and his coaching staff, however, this will be a new experience.
“I went on holiday this summer in Europe but still got a taste,” says the former Sunderland manager. “There were a lot of American tourists around and they’d all want to come up and speak to me about Wrexham.
“I’d be in a bar, walking down the street, it didn’t matter. I was a little bit taken aback by it all. It’s great for the club to have such a high profile.”
The tour is likely to be just as important commercially. With the ink still drying on those seven-figure sponsorship deals, the next fortnight provides an opportunity to bolster the brand further.
Throw in the imminent release of Welcome to Wrexham’s second series and it is easy to see why an annual turnover of £20million is seen as an achievable goal.
For context, Bradford City — comfortably the fourth tier’s best-supported club last season, with an average attendance of 17,000 — posted revenue of £7.3million in their last set of published accounts (2021-22), while Luton Town, now in the Premier League, earned £17.4million across the same period and losing Championship play-off finalists Coventry City £18.1million.
Wrexham’s turnover in 2021-22 stood at £5.97million, more than quadrupling their revenue of £1.47million in the year that included the Reynolds and McElhenney takeover going through in February 2021.
No wonder this summer’s tour could be just the start for the Welsh club in the United States.
“Unless something happens that we’ve not perceived as a possibility, then it is difficult to see why touring the U.S. would not become an annual affair,” says Harvey.
(Top photo: Wrexham fans at the Red Dragons’ opening TST match against Como 1907 in Cary, NC; by Rooted Creative x TST)
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