The phrase “Monday Night Football” may be an unfamiliar expression when it comes to heavyweight competition, but this is the first time an NFL player has gone head-to-head with Deadpool.
It’s Tom Brady versus Ryan Reynolds, it’s the big-spending players of the First Division versus Hollywood FC. In short, it’s Birmingham City versus Wrexham.
However you slice it, Monday night’s clash is a huge event both on and off the pitch, with two clubs that epitomise global football in a sell-out match that will be broadcast live on both sides of the Atlantic.
“This is a really, really high-profile game,” CBS Sports vice president Dan Weinberg said before the game against Birmingham’s home ground Wrexham, which will be broadcast on both networks as part of the network’s four-year deal with the English Football League (EFL).
“We’ve won every game at Wrexham this season and will be counting on them as much as possible. They are unbeatable in this country with the celebrity influence and visibility of Ryan and Rob. We’re excited to see their profile grow in the market.
“These two clubs have owners who are very well-regarded in this country.”
Not long ago, few in England would have batted an eyelid at this particular Anglo-Welsh rivalry, much less in the United States. The two clubs share little history apart from the £1m City paid for Brian Hughes in 1997, which remains Wrexham’s record transfer fee.
But now, celebrity power, Wrexham’s string of promotions and Birmingham’s shock relegation in May mean this top-flight fixture has plenty of appeal.
Deadpool stars Reynolds and McElhenney helped transform the formerly provincial club into a global sensation with two successful pre-season tours of North America, courtesy of the success of the Emmy-winning documentary ‘Welcome to Wrexham’.
Birmingham became even more attractive in 2023 when it was acquired by U.S. investment firm Knighthead, whose co-owner Tom Wagner is a minority investor and has the support of seven-time Super Bowl champion Brady.
Being relegated at the end of their first season was certainly not the plan, but it did nothing to detract from the group’s grand ambitions, which include buying 60 acres of land about a mile from St Andrews to build a new stadium.
Former NFL quarterback Tom Brady becomes minority owner in Birmingham in 2023 (Beatriz Velasco/Getty Images)
City have no intention of staying in the third tier for long, having splashed out £20 million ($26 million) on transfers this summer – around half of which is understood to have gone to Fulham striker Jay Stansfield, with Birmingham paying between £12 million and £15 million for the striker with no additional costs.
To put that figure into context, the highest fee paid by a club in this sector before the recent transfer window was £4m paid by Sunderland for Wigan Athletic striker Will Grigg.
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Wrexham co-owner McElhenney will remember this special deal as it featured heavily in season two of Netflix’s Sunderland ‘Til I Die, the series that first brought up the idea of a comedian taking over a football club.
His team have not been left behind in recruiting either. The £2m they spent during the summer transfer window was an unprecedented outlay for Wrexham, made possible by their annual revenues breaking the £20m barrier last season. Blue chip sponsorships such as United Airlines have also contributed significantly to the club’s record figure.
Both camps are in the thick of things ahead of Monday’s highly anticipated game, with Rexham enlisting the help of Brady’s longtime NFL rival, Eli Manning.
In response to Manning donning the Wales club’s shirt, Brady posted a cheeky video to X and Instagram (where he has 18 million followers) of one of his prized Super Bowl trophies, which ended with an appeal to McElhenney: “Could you please teach Wrexham fans a little bit about NFL history?”
See you on Monday! @BCFC @Wexum_AFC @RMcElheni @vancityreynolds https://t.co/Ny87RekOPR pic.twitter.com/YyvkWmL5JK
— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) September 14, 2024
AJ Swoboda, managing director of sports information company Twenty First Group, sees Wrexham as a good example of how to make a long-term splash in the US market.
“A celebrity like Tom Brady or Ryan Reynolds always helps to bring attention to a club,” he says. “Especially in a crowded or foreign market like the US.
“But while celebrity ownership can create short-term buzz, long-term fan engagement requires sustained sporting success and smart marketing (often digital) strategies.
“The Welcome to Wrexham documentary series has played a vital role in growing Wrexham’s global fan base, but the club’s owners have backed up these efforts with tangible improvements in sporting performance.”
He showed that analysis of Google Trends data over the past year showed that interest in Wrexham in the US was 22 times higher than Birmingham and 1.4 times higher than Premier League neighbours Aston Villa – despite the latter being in the Champions League.
“Tom Brady’s appeal and status will continue to drive interest in Birmingham City in new markets,” Swerboda added. “But as with Wrexham, that interest needs to translate into deeper fan engagement. Celebrity minority ownership is not as unique as it once was.”
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 he tagged Brady with an X, Monday night’s clash under the floodlights at St Andrews has all the makings of an exciting fixture. But perhaps the biggest battle lies ahead.
A recent report entitled Connecting and Winning in American Fandom: A Guidebook for European ClubsFan data specialist CLV Group suggests that 36 million American soccer fans (44%) have yet to decide which team they will root for. The group’s CEO, Neil Joyce, estimates there is a potential $1.1 billion at stake.
While the Premier League giants such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, as well as Europe’s elite clubs, are expected to absorb a significant portion of these huge revenues, Joyce believes clubs with big-name owners such as Wrexham and Birmingham could also get a piece of the action.
“The Wrexham story is amazing,” he says. “There’s an underdog element to it, a club on the brink of extinction, rising again. Americans love that kind of storytelling.
“And there’s the measurability of all that. United Airlines, one of the largest airlines in the world, has it on their uniforms. That kind of connection makes a big difference. I was on a United flight earlier this summer, and they gave me a (complimentary amenity) bag with Wrexham (pajamas) in it.
“It’s not just the game that matters, it’s the personality around the game that matters. Look at how Taylor Swift brought a new fandom to the NFL (her partner Travis Kelce plays for the Kansas City Chiefs), the way Ryan Reynolds brought Deadpool fans to Wrexham.
“Given the new EFL rights deal (with CBS), there will be a lot more exposure for Wrexham to sports fans in the US. They can take advantage of that. The same goes for Birmingham, which is widely regarded as one of the greatest in NFL history.
“Look at Tom Brady’s investments in adjacent sports. He has the (NFL team) Las Vegas Raiders, he has the WNBA team (Las Vegas Aces). Again, I’m going to leverage that fan base and bring them on board with Birmingham.”
As Joyce points out, the key to a potential entry into the US sports market is CBS Sports becoming the new home of the EFL. With over 250 games per season broadcast live on the network for at least the next four years, the potential exposure is huge.
CBS doesn’t publicly release ratings for individual games, but Weinberg said he was “really, really pleased with the ratings for the first month.”
He believes a key factor in the growing interest in the EFL in the US is the promotion and relegation system that allows clubs to potentially move up the pyramid. Birmingham, for example, were relegated to the First Division in May last year but are now determined to get right back up.
“The US market has embraced it,” says Weinberg, who stresses the importance of featuring all 72 EFL teams to the network. “It’s compelling and dramatic.”
Birmingham’s bid to secure promotion straight to the Championship is a major storyline this season (Cameron Smith/Getty Images)
American investors have been jumping into the EFL in recent years. By Christmas last year, 22 of the 72 teams were wholly or partly owned by minority investors from across the Atlantic. Fourteen of those teams have received new investment since Wrexham took over in 2021.
“What Wrexham have done brilliantly is globalise and diversify,” says Rory Pinto, a football finance and club takeover expert. “It’s easier said than done. A lot of credit goes to (Wrexham director) Shaun Harvey and others.
“There are a lot of people who think they can do the same. That’s the challenge: to try to do a global push with partners outside the UK to diversify their income streams.”
When asked if he expects more investment from North America in the future, Pinto said, “Yes, there is a lot more interest. Most of these U.S. owners are thinking globally and investing their money.
“American sports are expensive. If you want to buy a basketball, NFL or baseball team, it costs billions of dollars.”
With the United States set to host the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico, sports media analyst Larry Johnson believes a new four-year TV deal means EFL clubs are best placed to reap the benefits.
“The viewership data from the last two World Cups shows that the popularity of European sports (in the U.S.) has increased,” he says. “They’ve done quite a bit with La Liga and the Premier League, and a bit with the Bundesliga.
“All arrows point to the next World Cup and the numbers are going up in the Premier League and the EFL. Wrexham have the chance to do something really special, especially if they get promoted this year.
“Wrexham are already pulling in numbers. They had a friendly against Chelsea on ESPN, one of the biggest cable networks (July 2023). That brought in 300,000 viewers. That’s about the same as a Major League Soccer match on the same network.”
It may be inevitable in an era when the NFL and Major League Baseball play regular season games in London, but there are also talks of the Premier League and EFL also considering holding one-off games in the US.
Such a move would be hugely controversial. When the Daily Mail suggested this summer that Birmingham and Wrexham were in talks about a possible switch, Canadian-born Reynolds was quick to vehemently deny the story.
Wrexham’s international profile led to a famous friendly against Premier League giants Chelsea (Lyndsay Radnedge/ISI Photos/Getty Images)
Nevertheless, such stories still remain and CLV Group’s Joyce believes they could help European competitions attract fans.
“If European clubs were playing competitively in the United States, it would be much easier to make money and try to capture the market,” he says. “There’s a billion dollars at stake.”
This talk of growing the audience and realizing potential is of course for the board. There are only three points that matter on Monday night at the stadium.
Dan Scarr joined Wrexham in the summer from League One title-winning side Plymouth Argyle in 2023. He is a lifelong Birmingham fan who spent three years as a player at St Andrews after turning pro late in his career at the age of 22.
“What happened there was crazy,” the attorney said. work out. “It’s good for the city, it’s good for them as Birmingham City fans. The atmosphere is electric, it’s a sellout. There’s also something to be proud of between the owners, they’re both Americans and things like that.
“But we want to stop that (title winning) parade. Nothing else matters.”
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(Photo above: Getty Images)
