Welcome to Wrexham

Excuse us. Thank you, guys.

Thank you, gents.

Keep moving! Guys, move on!

Keep it moving! Sorry, guys.

Keep going!

Wow. Yes, yes, yes.

Not bad, right?

I don't think the goosebumps are 'cause it's cold.

I'm just thinking about how many thousands of people

have come to watch these games over the last 150 years.

- Pretty incredible. Yeah.

Oh, wow!

There you go. Come on, now.

Now, that's a stadium.

- Wow. Is that better?

So there is a real risk for us.

Yeah, I mean, that's part of the anxiety.

Like, watching the team lose last night,

you're thinking the investment in this club just took a hit.

Yes.

And there is a version of the story...

where we are villains...

- Where it doesn't-- - Oh, that's my usual story.

That's usually the story in my head.

Yeah. It doesn't work, and then we go,

"What are we gonna do? We have to sell it."

- And then we're the bad guys. Yeah.

- Fuck that. - Fuck that.

Yeah.

It's gonna work.

(singing) Come gather round, people

Wherever you roam

And admit that the waters around you have grown

And accept it that soon

You'll be drenched to the bone

If your time to you is worth savin'

Then you better start swimming

Or you'll sink like a stone

For the times, they are a-changin'

(singing) Welcome to Wrexham

A diamond in the heart of Wales

This land of dragons

Coal, fire, and steel

Hollywood A-lister Ryan Reynolds could be

about to take on his next big role.

Fellow A-lister Rob McElhenney

is bidding with Reynolds.

They could be about to launch a takeover

at Wrexham Football Club.

I'm hoping this is not some big publicity stunt.

Ah, it's probably just a joke on Twitter.

We've heard it all before, so it'll go tits up, 100%.

Don't get me wrong.

If the intentions are good and to move the club forward,

then fantastic, but we need to know why Wrexham.

(singing) Welcome to Wrexham

E-A-G-L-E-S. Eagles!

(upbeat marching band music playing)

I'm from Philadelphia,

and I've always been a sports fanatic.

I couldn't play anything, but I always love watching it.

My whole family loved the Eagles.

It was just something that was a part of my life

from the time I can remember.

The team becomes an extension of the city.

- Whoo! Whoo! Yeah!

Even as a kid,

I just remember that gave me something to identify with.

E-A-G-L-E-S! Eagles!

I grew up in South Philadelphia...

On the corner of Moyamensing and Dickinson.

The Philadelphia that I know

and the Philadelphia as it identifies itself,

are people who work really hard for everything that they have.

Oh, my God.

This is incredible.

Oh, my God.

- This is crazy! - (Bob chuckles)

- This is all exactly the same. Exactly the same. Yeah.

Like, nothing has been changed.

And the best part about this house was the outhouse--

An actual outhouse,

'cause they didn't have downstairs plumbing.

So if you were down here

and you didn't want to go upstairs,

you just went outside to the outhouse.

So, Leo... Ooh.

What would it be like to share this room...

with your brother?

Uh, is it this small? - Yeah.

Like, it would be, like, this exact room.

Honestly, if I could take this, I would.

- (laughter) You would?

You want an iPod?

Who doesn't?

One of the things that was really attractive

about Wrexham is, even though I've never been there,

the town reminds me of Philadelphia.

It's a working-class town. It's a blue-collar town.

It's a town that has had its ups and downs,

and they haven't had all the opportunities

that a lot of other people have had.

I feel like I know those people.

I grew up with those people.

I am one of those people.

Humphrey, what are the rules?

Well, the rules are

our team's trying to put the ball in your goal.

You're trying to put it in our goal.

That's really all you need to know right now.

- Where am I going? - The goal.

Yeah, Mom.

- (laughter) Hey!

Rob is a new convert

to the charms and joys of football.

Rob and I have worked together and we're friends.

I watch quite a lot of football

in the writers' room during our lunch breaks.

Rob started to be like, "What is this?

Why are you so obsessed with this stupid game?"

My mind was racing

when I learned about the English system.

The idea that you can get promoted

into a league above you and demoted

and kicked out of the league is incredible.

The English professional football system,

or pyramid, consists of four tiers.

The Premier League at the top of the pyramid,

that's the créme de la créme of football

where you've got your Chelseas,

Manchester Uniteds.

And one tier down from that, you've got the Championship,

then League One and League Two.

So the farther up the pyramid you are,

the better the talent, the bigger the prizes,

and thus the more profitable your club becomes.

Teams can move between tiers via promotion and relegation.

At the end of the season, the best teams go up,

and the worst teams go down.

For the past 14 seasons,

Wrexham have been playing here,

below the pyramid, in the National League,

the lowest level

of professional football in England--

The tiers below being semi-professional.

Being relegated to the National League is...

A bit like football purgatory.

The wages are low. The prize money is low.

It makes it very difficult

for clubs like Wrexham that drop into it

to get back into the English football league system.

Imagine, if you will,

the New York Yankees lose 150 games in a season.

They finish dead last,

and they have to drop down a league

and the following year

play against the likes of the Toledo Mud Hens

and the Sacramento River Cats.

And if they keep losing enough

and they keep dropping leagues,

then eventually they end up

playing beer league softball in Ithaca

or against fucking 12-year-olds in Williamsport.

And then I called Humphrey, and I was like,

"If you had a club that had an infrastructure

"that could at least support

"an even-ing of the balance sheet,

"can't you theoretically take a team that's

in the lowest league and bring them to the top?"

Goal!

He said, "Yes."

But as I started to gather more and more information,

I realized how expensive it was going to be.

I have TV money,

but as I started to look at how expensive

it actually was to run a club,

I realized that I needed something more than TV money.

I needed...

movie-star money.

Sometimes you got to let your heart lead you,

even if you know it's someplace

you know you're not supposed to be.

More than that, I needed superhero movie-star money.

Time to make the chimi-fucking-changas.

More than that probably, as we ascended up the leagues,

I would need alcohol-baron money.

Aviation American Gin.

And mobile-phone-services money,

and...

what other companies does this bitch have?

Cybersecurity. - Cybersecurity money.

And--anybody?

What else has he got?

Ah!

What the fuck? That--I mean--