Wrexham vs. Birmingham and the American invasion of English football

Discussing English football ownership is turning into the ultimate name drop. Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney at Wrexham. Tom Brady at Birmingham City. Michael B. Jordan at Bournemouth. J.J. Watt at Burnley. Even Snoop Dogg is in on the action, becoming co-owner of Swansea City this summer.

But the American invasion of English football has moved beyond novelty. Twelve of the Premier League’s 20 clubs now answer to U.S. ownership—either wholly or partially. Drop down to the Championship, English football’s second tier, and nine more clubs are backed by American money.

On Friday, when Wrexham hosts Birmingham City, it will be a clash of two celebrity-driven, American-backed clubs facing off on U.K. soil. It’s Reynolds and McElhenney versus Brady, and it’s a matchup that captures exactly how much the English football landscape has shifted over the past two decades.

The Great English Land Grab

Malcolm Glazer’s $1.5 billion takeover of Manchester United in 2005 made him the Premier League’s first-ever American owner. Now, 20 years later, the four most successful clubs in English football history—Liverpool, Manchester United, Arsenal, and Chelsea—are all majority-owned by Americans.

The 2008 financial crisis accelerated the trend. The U.S. economy recovered faster than Europe’s, creating a surplus of capital among moguls wealthy enough to covet professional sports teams and an opportunity to buy overseas clubs at a discount. That arbitrage remains. In May 2022, Todd Boehly and private equity firm Clearlake Capital bought Chelsea, one of the Premier League’s marquee clubs, for $3.2 billion. Just over a year later, Josh Harris purchased the Washington Commanders for $6.05 billion, nearly double what Boehly paid.

Celebrity involvement was limited until Reynolds and McElhenney made their splash in 2021. They bought Wrexham—a fifth-tier Welsh club—for just $2.5 million. Their unique approach and subsequent success have demonstrated how American celebrity ownership can benefit a club via global marketing in ways traditional ownership cannot.

The Rise of Wrexham

When Reynolds and McElhenney took over in February 2021, they inherited a club with deep roots and persistent struggles. Founded in 1864, Wrexham is the third-oldest professional football club in the world. But by 2021, the club had spent 15 years stuck in the National League—England’s fifth tier. Think of it as Single-A baseball or the NBA’s G-League, but a tier lower. That’s where Wrexham floundered.

Reynolds and McElhenney started by admitting what they didn’t know and bringing in experts. Their first hire was Shaun Harvey, who had previously run the entire English Football League. Harvey recommended they hire Phil Parkinson, a manager with a history of earning promotions.

With the front office set, the on-field strategy was simple: Spend money on better players. Wrexham lured Paul Mullin, the fourth tier’s top scorer, exploiting a loophole that exempted equity investment from lower-league spending caps.

But the off-field strategy is where Wrexham really won. Reynolds and McElhenney launched Welcome to Wrexham on FX, turning the club into a four-season documentary series. They signed sponsorship deals with TikTok, United Airlines, Expedia, and Aviation Gin (which Reynolds co-owns).

By the 2023–24 season, while playing in the fourth tier, Wrexham was generating nearly $34 million in revenue—more commercial income than five Premier League clubs. The money funded operations and player acquisitions that contributed to three consecutive promotions from 2022 to 2025, a first in EFL history. Now, the club that sold for $2.5 million four years ago is reportedly valued at up to $475 million, and the club is one promotion away from the highest level of English football, the Premier League.

The CopyGOAT: Tom Brady Gets In

Birmingham City was last in the Premier League in 2011, when it won the League Cup, an annual in-season tournament, by beating English juggernaut Arsenal. That same season, the club was relegated from the Premier League and spent the next 13 years stuck in the league’s second tier.

Then Tom Brady and Knighthead Capital Management took control in July 2023. Brady became a minority shareholder, and he brought his playbook from 22 years in the NFL, where he won seven Super Bowls.

While the Knighthead brass run the club, Brady acts more as Birmingham’s self-help guru. He imported his personal “body coach,” Alex Guerrero, as an adviser on performance and nutrition. Players now receive electrolyte monitoring and tailored hydration protocols. When head coach Chris Davies hit a rough patch before Christmas, Brady sent him a video of Alabama coach Nick Saban discussing leadership philosophy.

The ownership made ruthless decisions. They fired manager John Eustace after 11 games despite sitting sixth in the Championship. They brought in Wayne Rooney, an English football legend. When that didn’t work and Birmingham was relegated to League One, the third tier of English football, for the first time in 29 years, they fired Rooney. Amazon’s Built in Birmingham documentary captured Brady questioning Rooney’s work ethic on camera—an unusually direct critique that signaled how this ownership group was going to operate.

The club hired Davies to replace Rooney, and he led Birmingham to the League One title with a record 111 points in 2024–25, earning a promotion to the Championship, where they’re competing with Wrexham for one of the three coveted spots atop the table that earn promotion to the Premier League.

Is the Future of English Football American?

In the past 18 months, American investors have completed multiple acquisitions across all levels of English football, from Everton in the Premier League to lower-tier clubs like Carlisle United and Reading FC. And the growth in U.S. investment shows no signs of slowing, as private equity groups are viewing English football clubs as undervalued entertainment assets with global reach. Manchester United was worth an estimated $1.5 billion when the Glazers bought it in 2005. Forbes now values it at $6.6 billion.

Friday’s match between Wrexham and Birmingham offers a snapshot of where American ownership stands. Wrexham sits 15th in the Championship with eight points from eight matches. Birmingham is 11th with 10 points. Both teams are mid-table, far from the automatic promotion spots that would lift them to the Premier League.

The Championship is brutal by design—a 46-game grind where clubs relegated from the Premier League arrive with parachute payments that can triple operating budgets. Promotion requires finishing in the top two or winning a four-team playoff.

Neither Wrexham nor Birmingham will likely earn promotion this season. But Friday’s match isn’t really about league position. It’s about temporary bragging rights between American celebrity owners who’ve proven that English football can be reimagined as a global entertainment product—one that just happens to involve the occasional 90 minutes of actual football.

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