Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s recent purchase of Wrexham AFC is just the latest sign of Hollywood’s growth in the sport sector
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney’s purchase of Wrexham AFC came as a shock to many, but for some in sport production it was just the latest sign of a growing trend in the industry.
Whisper CEO, Sunil Patel, and Aurora Media chief strategy officer, Barry Flanigan, spoke to Broadcast Sport about how sport production has seen a growing role for Hollywood stars and storytelling.
Flanigan, who was chief product officer at Copa90 before he moved to Aurora Media in 2020, made clear that Wrexham’s surprise sale has been coming for a long time.
A message from our owners-elect…
Welcome to Wrexham AFC, @RMcElhenney and @VancityReynolds 🥳
🔴⚪️ #WxmAFC pic.twitter.com/ho1vV8cvry
— Wrexham AFC (@Wrexham_AFC) November 16, 2020
“It isn’t something that has just appeared now, it has been building for years,” he said. “There are so many adjacent passion points – with fashion, music, lifestyle, and more.
“More recently, the rise of sport content streaming without sport actually on has caused it to gather pace even further. Pre-Covid this was also happening in part driven by younger audiences, where their love of sport bleeds into adjacent areas such as fashion, lifestyle, gaming etc.
“You can see this with the crossover between Hollywood and music stars being fans of sport, and athletes talking about the things they love outside of sport. One sign was the announcement of Paul Pogba signing for Manchester United with Stormzy a few years back.”
Patel agreed: “Sport is universal and that no matter how famous someone is, they will usually have a passion for a particular sport. We’ve found that tapping into that passion has helped us land huge names for our sports-based entertainment or factual projects.”
The rise in streamers has also allowed for further experimentation on this front, with Hollywood-style storytelling seeing a growing role in documentaries – as Patel explained: “Sport is entertainment. It includes and generates amazing stories and Hollywood is good at recreating and telling stories.”
Flanigan added: “The rise of storytelling through documentaries and additional content showing the characters and heroes in a sport has been key. It’s much more like entertainment than traditional coverage.
“For example, All or Nothing on Amazon Prime, or Sunderland ‘Til I Die on Netflix, even covering those smaller clubs at lower levels can be eye-catching because they have all of the things that go into entertainment.
“Also, Losers on Netflix – in a previous age you wouldn’t think a documentary about 1980s Torquay FC would work, but in streaming it is excellent.”
Racing has perhaps been at the forefront of this, with Whisper and Aurora both including some celebrity stardust with their productions for Formula One, Extreme E, and Formula E.
Patel revealed: “We saw increased interest in Formula E, when Leonardo DiCaprio co-founded a team, Venturi Racing.
“Formula One has worked with Hollywood stars for many years. Red Bull Racing promoted both the Star Wars and Superman films at the Monaco GP, Tom Cruise drove a Red Bull Racing F1 car, Lewis Hamilton made a wide-reaching film for social media with Will Smith when he attended a race.”
Aurora has seen utilising the crossover in interests as particularly important while growing Extreme E.
“Emerging sports need this to reach and engage with fans. The time when you could just put out a feed of your live games and people would flock to linear TV to become fans is over,” Flanigan said.
“It’s about the things that surround the sport, which is what we have tried to do with Formula E and Extreme E. A lot of the content is this type of content, entertainment and lifestyle that often involves people from outside of the sport.
“For example, we created a piece with Sebastian Buemi, Nissan driver in Formula E, doing salsa dancing. It brings the drivers, crews, etc. to life. Which can turn the passive viewer into an engaged fan.”
However, it has to be done properly. Flanigan continued: “It’s got to be authentic and the opposite of that traditional celebrity sport endorsement. It’s building from the start the story that we want to tell.
“When it does really work is when a celebrity or influencer is talking about something they’re passionate about or also when they are learning about something for the first time.
“A good example has been the content showing grime artists talking about their love of football.”
Both Patel and Flanigan believe Reynolds and McElhenny are following in these footsteps, and can leverage Wrexham AFC to make the most of these advances.
“Now we see a lower league football team that’s not often in national news, now in the news due to its new links to Hollywood,” pointed out Patel.
Flanigan concurred: “With Reynolds and Mcelhenny, it’s the story of Wrexham being a town with community, one of the oldest clubs in the league with a storied history – and it’s no coincidence that it’s fan owned. Even if they don’t succeed it will be a dramatic and incredible story, linked to the entertainment provided by the club and community.”