Welcome To Wrexham

[BetterButter]

 

[aghst]

Watched the first two episodes of season 4.

Very watchable show as usual.

Now that they're in League One, they're competing against teams from cities with much bigger population, stadium, etc.

They not only have to acquire better players to compete on the pitch, they need to level up the infrastructure, especially the stadium, to bring in more revenues, to pay for all that.

So they hire an American as a CEO and they seem to be implying that they will rely more on revenues from American fans to compete against teams which generate more money from match day ticket sales.

The other aspect is that the show has brought a lot of tourism to Wrexham and many of these visitors try to attend games but the limited capacity of the Race Horse results in them leaving a lot of money on the table.

So in the first season, Wrexham was seen as a poor, semi-abandoned town.  A lot of businesses on the High Street had gone out of business.

But now with the success and fame of the club, they're building new store fronts and restaurants and such to handle the increased tourism.

They profile two new businesses, a local woman who returned after university to build a new mobile barista business, running a cafe out of a trailer.

Then they show a family of Ukrainian refugees, who fled war and are trying to re-establish an Ukraine cafe.   They showed some Ukrainian sweets but I also saw a sign for Belgian chocolate chip cookies.

I guess coffee and cafes are popular there.  Or at least there are so many visitors that new cafes can absorb the increased demand.

 

Lot of interesting scenes in these episodes, from their US tour, with the controversy of one player who was seen as denigrating Wrexham, to the friendly ribbing with Tom Brady, who's a part-owner of Birmingham, a favorite to win League One.

I remember that Rob and Ryan supposedly invested a few million on the team and then had to pour in millions more to build up the roster and improve the stadium.

Now though they're told if they want to try for triple promotion,  back to back to back, which has never been done in  English Football, they'd have to spend 50 million pounds!

If they managed to build up the team enough, they could probably make a good profit because so many American investors are buying into football clubs over there.

 

[BetterButter]

‘Welcome to Wrexham’ Renewed for Season 5 at FX as Spinoff ‘Necaxa’ With Eva Longoria Sets Summer Premiere

[Shrek]

2 hours ago, BetterButter said:

‘Welcome to Wrexham’ Renewed for Season 5 at FX as Spinoff ‘Necaxa’ With Eva Longoria Sets Summer Premiere

I wondered why she was at one of the games they showed last week, good to know my wild guess was correct.

[Inquisitionist]

On 10/16/2022 at 5:23 PM, xaxat said:

If they do a second season, it will have to be really different. This season did a great job of exploring what it means to be a fan, what Wrexham means to the town, the dynamic of being a new owner etc. I think there's only so many ways to tell stories about the team that aren't based on what is happening on the pitch and they used a lot of them.

I just finished S2 and frankly, it was kind of a slog.  I don't think I'll continue.

[aghst]

They do retell the same stories over and over again, how the team has uplifted what was an economically moribund town/area.

Even in S4 they show some newcomers, who've opened businesses because of the increased business activity, as a result of the success of the team, which attracts visitors from all over the world.

One such group of people were a Ukrainian family with a very young child who fled war and opened a cafe on High Street.

But now the team is a force, going for an unprecedented 3rd consecutive promotion, often playing teams from much bigger cities and some clubs who were in the Premier League just in the past decade.  So they're wrestling with building up infrastructure, not just renovate the stadium but build youth academies, improve the facilities for the women's team, etc.

What's left unsaid is how much the club would be worth if they made the Premier League.  One club who just made it is estimated to see an increase in revenues of $270 million next season.  But that also means they have to buy players who could command mid 8-figure transfer fees.

But they do have very long seasons, like at least a dozen episodes.  They've only aired 4 episodes of S4 but it's already known what happens.  In fact Rob and Ryan are going around giving interviews, talking about their season, which only ended last month.