Ryan Reynolds’ business is booming. He bought Montreal payments technology company Nuvei this week. He recently sold Mint Mobile for $1.7 billion. He offloaded his gin company for another $825 million.
But the crown jewel of Reynolds’ business may be a floating Welsh soccer club he bought with fellow actor Rob McElhenney in 2021 for $3 million.
For many years, Wrexham Football Club suffered in the National League, the fifth tier of the English football league system.
Actors poured money for new stands and better players. Documents filed this week show the team has lost nearly $5 million in the past 12 months alone.
![Man rejoicing](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6731222.1675115345!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/ryan-reynolds.jpg)
But now, the club is ready to get a promotion to the next level.
With a win this weekend, Wrexham will climb out of the bottom National League and into the English League, one step closer to the vaunted Premiere League.
“It’s a big deal,” said Canadian soccer legend Craig Forrest. “I mean, especially when you look at where the club Wrexham came from.”
The difference between the league Wrexham is trying to get out of and the top of the football pyramid is, Forrest put it, like the difference between “the NHL and a pickup hockey league in the UK”
Reynolds has already helped build the club with the same enthusiasm and self-deprecating charm that has brands across industries eager to join his team.
A nice guy who cares
Forrest, who now co-hosts the podcast Footy Prime, plays for the Canadian men’s national team and spent years in the Premiere League, even playing against Wrexham once before the club fell into the difficult times.
He was impressed by the business acumen of Wrexham’s new owners. They signed a deal with Hulu to make a documentary about their first year of club ownership.
Welcome to Wrexham a hit, distributed in Canada on Disney+. It grew a lot with the club’s audience. Before the actors bought the club, Wrexham’s main sponsor was a local trailer company. Reynolds and McElhenney replaced that with a TikTok branding deal.
Their social media accounts, followed by millions around the world, help spread the word.
I have never screamed like this in my life. I thought I was going to die when he put the ball in the air like that. @Wrexham_AFC ⚰️ https://t .co/WjnIjjIKWs
“This is a little case study of what we’ve seen happen in global sports in the last, you know, four or five years,” said Cheri Bradish, the director of the Future of Sport Lab and chair of the marketing management at Toronto Metropolitan University.
He said Reynolds has carved an image of himself as someone who genuinely cares about the brands he’s associated with.
That worked in Wrexham. He works for his company called Aviator and also works for Mint Mobile.
So, he said, it’s no wonder that almost every conversation involving the sale of the NHL’s Ottawa Senators includes the name Ryan Reynolds.
“I think what he represents, especially in Canada, is the personification of what we also find attractive in the general sports market, which is a good sense of brands and a good sense of message, ” he told CBC News.
In a recent appearance of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy FallonReynolds spoke of the importance of Wrexham’s promotion story, and confirmed he is interested in buying the Senators.
“I try to do that,” he said. “Too expensive. I need a partner with very deep pockets.”
LOOK | Reynolds is looking for a financial backer for the purchase of the Senators:
Connect with the audience
Buying a sports franchise requires deep pockets, usually in the form of pension plans or venture capital firms.
But that need cuts both ways.
Deep pockets need someone like Reynolds to rally the community with real enthusiasm and be the face of an ownership group. And little by little, Reynolds built himself into something of a business juggernaut.
A recent Bloomberg piece compared Reynolds’ businesses to other celebrity-owned brands run by the likes of George Clooney, Kim Kardashian and Jay-Z.
None of that guarantees success. Wrexham missed out on promotion last year. Selling Mint Mobile could still be challenged by regulators and no investment is a sure bet.
But Reynolds has carved out an extraordinary role and traveled an extraordinary path to get here. From the handsome actor, to the Marvel superhero to the investment mogul, he taps into the same thing.
![Two men in the foreground with a soccer stadium and fans in the background.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.6730952.1675107003!/cpImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/ryan-reynolds-r-ob-mcelhenney.jpg)
At its core, celebrity entrepreneurship is tied back to the star’s connection with their audience, their ability to tell a story and keep people engaged.
For evidence of that, look no further than how he spoke after a recent Wrexham thriller on Wales’ home turf.
“I don’t think I have a heart any more. I think I used all the beats I have left,” he told BT News after the match. “That’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”
And this is why the actor’s biggest roles are just as likely to come in the boardroom as they are on the movie set.