How ‘Wrexham effect’ is transforming non-league football

Peter McCormack was described as a “budget Ryan Reynolds” in a magazine article a few years ago.

Their differences in day jobs as a former advertising executive-turned-podcaster and his Hollywood counterpart were entirely attributable to their involvement in English non-league football.

Reynolds and fellow movie star investor Rob McElhenney had a blast launching Wrexham into the championship after a well-known takeover in 2020, but McCormack had unintended ambitions to pursue the same goal at Real Bedford, a lowly semi-professional club he purchased two years later.

Bedford resident McCormack, the largest investment in non-league football ever made, secured a $3.6 million investment from Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the owners of a Facebook-like network and now cryptocurrency billionaires.

McCormack objectes to the Reynolds parallels because of this.

McCormack mischievously claims that “my co-owners are worth 10 or 20 times what Reynolds and McElhenney are.” Ryan Reynolds is, in truth, the “budget Winklevoss.”

The new wave of non-league football is led by McCormack, who is open and honest.

The recent arrival of Hollywood nobility and its ferocious success at Wrexham has given a little glamour to a previously undone landscape that had been long considered an unfashionable world of bobbly pitches and run-down clubhouses.

Growing numbers of clubs now profit from the substantial cash and celebrity income from the lower reaches of England’s football pyramid, which includes everything that is only accessible to local businessmen and, less commonly, businesswomen.

Last year, the average weekly attendances for the top four non-league levels reached an all-time high of 117, 586, an increase of 43% over the previous five years and 89% in a decade.

Reynolds and McElhenney aren’t the only famous faces on the scene right now.

When Stormzy, a multi-award-winning rapper, and Wilfried Zaha, a former Crystal Palace player, purchased ninth-tier Croydon Athletic in 2023, both their motivations helped the London borough where they both grew up.

When he and Boyzone singer Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy were the unofficial public faces of National League North club Chorley last year, Westlife boyband member Brian McFadden informed about aspirations to follow Reynolds’ footsteps a few hundred miles further north.

Attendances at Chesham United’s National League South games have almost doubled in the past two years thanks to the newly appointed club director and show creator, Alex Horne, who has been the show’s creator.

Vicky McClure, a Line of Duty actor, and her husband Jonny Owen provided funding for then-second-tier Merthyr Town’s kit through their production company for three seasons starting in 2021-22. Since then, the club’s attendance has nearly tripled, and they were named Southern League Premier South champions last year.

Social media has a significant role in the rise in popularity.

Six years ago, a group of teenage friends bought 10th-tier Walton &amp, Hersham to promote themselves as “the world’s youngest football club owners,” and they quickly gained more than a million TikTok followers.

Since then, they have since opened the club’s sister academy in Florida, which has since been promoted three times.

Owner Sartej Tucker says, “There are more people following non-league football today than there were five years ago.

Non-league football is “on par with League One and Championship clubs in terms of brand.” The footballing product is the only difference. Positive aspects of the game have been used to glamourize it.

Harry Hugo looked for non-league clubs a 25-mile radius of his home and bought Farnham Town in 2022 after selling his global influencer marketing firm for a multi-million dollar sum. In order to become the Southern League Premier Division South, they have worked with a number of online content creators and won back-to-back titles.

The Wrexham effect has spread far beyond the home country, with more and more foreign investors investing in semi-professional clubs.

Andy Carroll, a former England international, signed for Redbridge’s Dagenham &amp, Redbridge on the same day as their American owners announced a Qatari takeover.

Two National League North teams received funding last year from abroad, with King’s Lynn Town receiving funding from Singapore and Telford United joining a 15-person consortium of Los Angeles-based investors.

For those looking to make an investment in football clubs, Elliot Stroud’s website. He established a separate portal exclusively for non-league clubs, which now occupy 70% of his time, one year after launching his business in 2023. Reynolds, McElhenney, and their Welcome to Wrexham TV show are the cause, he claims.

“People have gotten to know that they want to “do a Wrexham,” says Stroud. It “has undoubtedly had an impact.”

It’s amazing how many people I speak to only want to talk about the show, how realistically they can be, and how much money will be required. It is frequently brought up in conversation.

With three consecutive victories, McCormack’s goal of moving Real Bedford from the 10th tier to the Premier League has come to fruition. Continue at this rate, and his team might eventually compete with Wrexham in English football.

He asserts, “Our club is unstoppable with what we want to do.”

Football disruption is fantastic. The expansion of football itself has a positive impact in the long run. It has new life.