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The Wrexham AFC women’s team connected with viewers through their stories on FX’s Welcome to Wrexham, and their ascendant play took them to Wales’ top-tier Adran Premier League.
Now, their U.S. tour looks to use a bit of sports marketing to connect them to global fans and brands.
Just two years ago, Wrexham owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney explained to audiences that when they bought Wrexham AFC to help promote its men’s team through the English football pyramid—which they’ve now done for two consecutive seasons—they didn’t know the club had a women’s team as well.
“Anyone who watches the show shouldn’t be surprised to learn that it was one of the best surprises we’ve had,” McElhenney told ADWEEK. “We get the chance to support another team that has just as much potential and heart as our initial prospect.”
Perhaps more. Viewers met Rosie Hughes as a prison guard before learning she was the highest-scoring Wrexham player on its women’s team and any team in its organization. They learned about midfielder Lili Jones’ early career in England with Everton before returning to her hometown to play for Wrexham and wash dishes just after her father died in 2021. They met lifelong Wrexham fan Gemma Owen, a Welsh international field hockey player who helped relaunch senior women’s football at Wrexham in 2018 and now serves as the club’s head of women’s football operations.
And through it all, viewers saw the team rise from a low-tier league on a municipal mud patch to a Welsh-record crowd of 9,511 at its Racecourse home ground and eventual promotion.
“We want to promote what we’re doing on the women’s side, the players themselves and how amazing they are,” Owen told ADWEEK. “It’s key for us now, as we’re growing the [women’s] department and the game in the U.K., that we go out and try and expose ourselves to as many people and brands as we want to meet.”
After the Wrexham men did a small tour of the U.S. in 2023, the club began planning a similar effort for Wrexham’s women’s team. Both men’s and women’s players went to Cary, N.C., for The Soccer Tournament—a 7-on-7 open-invitation tournament in which Owen coached both teams. The Wrexham women went 0-3 but played squads consisting of National Women’s Soccer League’s Angel City FC players and alumni from the U.S. Women’s National Team’s World Cup and Olympic squads.
For their upcoming tour, the Wrexham women scouted teams that were of a similar semi-pro caliber as the Adran Premier League. With backing from Ally, Wrexham heads to UCLA’s Drake Stadium in Los Angeles to play semi-pro club SoCal FC on July 19 before taking on the under-19 squad of high-powered Mexican club Tigres Femenil—home of Spanish World Cup star Jenni Hermoso—in the same stadium on July 23. The trip wraps up in Portland, Ore., on July 26 with a matchup against NWSL club Portland Thorns Academy developmental team.