It was the crossover that no one in the entertainment industry, or the sports world, saw coming: the stars of Deadpool and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia aligning in February 2021 to purchase a beleaguered professional football club in the north of Wales. Four years on from that blockbuster deal, which looked all but doomed to end in disaster, Ryan Reynolds and Rob Mac (legally changed from McElhenney, a tongue-twisting trip wire apparently) have not only proven to be eminently noble stewards of 160-year-old Wrexham FC; in hindsight, they look even cannier for deciding to make a great show of their attempt to reverse the club’s fortunes.
Welcome to Wrexham – their Ted Lasso-like hourlong series documenting the club’s historic ascent from fifth division English football to, now, the Premier League doorstep – has been an unqualified hit with American audiences and critics, many of whom came into this premise as clueless as the new owners themselves. So it figures now that Wrexham has nabbed eight primetime Emmy nominations, Hollywood finds itself scrabbling to turn Reynolds and Mac’s offsides run into a proper reality TV subgenre, with three new Wrexham knockoffs hitting small screens starting from last week.
