Actor Ryan Reynolds bought UK football club Wrexham. Now city’s tourism is booming

Clutching a pint of Guinness in one hand and flicking through photos on his phone in the other, Nestor Aguedelo laughs and jokes with his wife and sister-in-law in a corner of The Turf, a pub in north Wales that has rapidly become one of Britain’s most unlikely tourist hotspots. “We came to Wrexham because of the TV documentary,” says Aguedelo, an engineer from Bogota, Colombia. “We got to know the city because of that, and we just wanted to see it for ourselves.” It is a familiar story being told across this former market, mining and brewing town, whose status has been transformed after its down-on-its-luck football club was bought by Hollywood celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney for US$2.5 million in 2020. That notoriety has only increased since the pair launched Welcome to Wrexham, a fly-on-the-wall TV series streaming on Disney+ that has turned the team’s players and some of Wrexham’s residents into familiar faces on screens around the world. International tourists are now coming to find out more about this long-overlooked Welsh city with an urban population of 45,000. “When we think of Ryan Reynolds, we think of Wrexham,” says Linda Williams, 70, a visitor from Reynolds’ native Canada, as she walks through the city centre during a three-week trip to Wales. Tourism revenue in Wrexham reached about £180 million (US$235 million) in 2023, up 20 per cent from the year before and almost 50 per cent since 2018, according to Ian Bancroft, CEO of Wrexham County Borough Council. “We know from our tourism stats that the classic tourist route is America-Windsor-Wrexham-home,” Bancroft says, referring to Windsor Castle, the royal fortress outside London where Prince Harry married Meghan Markle in 2018. As “the Rob and Ryan effect” – as some are labelling it – takes hold, the local economy has been boosted by businesses investing in, or relocating to, Wrexham. American food manufacturer Kellogg’s recently announced it was creating Europe’s largest cereal factory in Wrexham’s industrial estate with a US$100 million investment, delivering at least 130 jobs as part of a relocation. Boutique hotels are popping up across the city, while Hannah Thomas, a local property manager, says more Americans are buying flats in the area and renting them out on Airbnb to tourists coming to watch the football. Meanwhile, Wrexham Lager, a brewery that sponsors the team and boasts of being the only lager available on the Titanic’s doomed voyage in 1912, says it has gained such visibility from the TV series that it is expanding internationally. “We’ve started to make more significant strides in the past 12 months by growing our Welsh retailer footprint, expanding across the UK, launching into Scandinavia and Australia, and plan to go live in Canada and the US in the coming months,” says James Wright, the company’s CEO. Supported by PR from Reynolds and McElhenney, Wrexham is bidding to become the UK City of Culture for 2029. It only gained city status in 2022. The takeover of the football club and the TV series have “acted as a catalyst to supercharge the change in Wrexham”, Bancroft says. “Wrexham’s growth would be happening, but it might only be one-fiftieth of what it is now.” Wrexham is Wales’ fourth-largest city by population and a short drive from the major northwest-England hubs of Liverpool and Manchester. It was built on heavy industry, agriculture and mining, but has failed to punch its weight as the major urban region of north Wales in recent years. A tired-looking city centre contains some empty, boarded-up stores. Memories remain of race riots on a Wrexham estate that made national headlines in 2003. Now, though, there is optimism and aspiration. The first destination for overseas visitors is invariably Wrexham’s football ground, the Racecourse, which is the world’s oldest football stadium to host international matches that still does. Connected to it is The Turf, a lively centrepiece in the documentary series. The pub’s manager, Wayne Jones, has become a celebrity in his own right owing to his frequent appearances in Welcome to Wrexham, with actors Will Ferrell and Paul Rudd among those visiting the pub. Wrexham has just achieved back-to-back promotions to climb to the third tier of English football – it is one of five Welsh teams in the English football league system – where it is in second place two months into the new season. Reynolds and McElhenney’s dream is to reach the lucrative Premier League. I don’t think Wrexham will ever change its identity – Wrexham will always be Wrexham – but it is changing its vibe and attitude. It’s becoming positive Petra Goodband, associate priest Wrexham’s St. Giles Church Once Wrexham completes the redevelopment of its once-imposing Kop stand, scheduled for 2026, there is a commitment for the Racecourse to host qualifying matches for international tournaments for Wales’ men’s national team. That year, a new Football Museum for Wales is scheduled to open near the stadium. McElhenney has pledged to help turn a disused site in the city centre into a community space that can stage events. He also announced the team’s chosen charity this season would be the “Wrexham Miners Project”, which works to preserve the history of Wrexham’s mining community – a cause close to the city’s heart because of a local mining disaster in 1934 in which 266 people died. Then there are the intangible benefits of the takeover. “I don’t think Wrexham will ever change its identity – Wrexham will always be Wrexham – but it is changing its vibe and attitude. It’s becoming positive,” says Petra Goodband, the associate priest for St. Giles Church in the city centre. “So even if Rob and Ryan just tick along with the football club, their energy has been put into Wrexham, and made Wrexham a place that has pride in itself again.”

Actor Ryan Reynolds bought UK football club Wrexham. Now city’s tourism is booming

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Tourism in the Welsh city has rocketed since Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s purchase and the airing of Disney+ TV series Welcome to Wrexham

Tourism in the Welsh city has rocketed since Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s purchase and the airing of Disney+ TV series Welcome to Wrexham