Kit launch next to Spider-Man and opening Nasdaq: Wrexham take over New York

Wrexham launched their new kit in Times Square as part of a major two-week tour of the US WREXHAM AFC

Sunday August 02 2026, 7.04pm, The Times

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A little over six decades since a Liverpool rock’n’roll band conquered New York and changed the face of global entertainment for ever, bemused tourists in Times Square this week were treated to an altogether different kind of invasion from a group hailing not too far from Merseyside.

In fact, Liverpool themselves were also in town this week but it was their near neighbours (geographically if not in terms of the football record books) Wrexham who were most obviously basking in their moment at the centre of the world’s entertainment capital.

It might have been slightly incongruous, positioned alongside sky-high video advertising hoardings for the latest Spider-Man movie and Broadway shows, but a Championship football club launching their new kit with huge electronic billboards on this stage was, to quote their chief executive Michael Williamson, a “pinch-me” moment.

Wrexham, who were playing Liverpool in a friendly on Wednesday, and Hollywood have been comfortable, if unlikely, bedfellows ever since Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney bought them more than five years ago.

Wrexham’s new shirt sponsor is Firefox, a far cry from Ifor Williams Trailers, whose name was on the shirt when Reynolds arrived on the scene Dustin Satloff/Getty Images

A run of three successive promotions was halted only last season when they missed out on the play-offs on the final day. Still, every step of the journey has been captured by a documentary series and led to the club enjoying unprecedented exposure that has them claiming 30 million fans worldwide, 41 per cent of them outside Europe and more than 10 million in North America.

Market research is one thing, Times Square swarming with supporters in Wrexham shirts — most, clearly, from North America — and Williamson being asked to ring the ceremonial bell that opened trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Tuesday, is quite another.

“Listen, it is absolutely a pinch-me moment,” said Williamson, a 54-year-old American and former Inter Milan executive who joined Wrexham, then preparing for life in League One, two years ago.

“Obviously, it’s an incredible experience for me personally. But more importantly, what is amazing is to think that the story of Wrexham and where it’s come from, and where it is today, to be here in New York City playing against Liverpool at Yankee Stadium.

“And to be able to ring the opening bell on Nasdaq and have all of our kit launch revealed in Times Square, it is truly a remarkable moment. And when you really go back to think about how resilient the club has been over the decades, to see it arrive here is just something everyone should be proud of. This is the moment of success.”

Wrexham signalling the start of trade on the Nasdaq highlighted the club’s expanding profile WREXHAM AFC

Even allowing for the profile of their owners, the sight of a British football club that three years ago was just climbing out of non-League competition plastered all over downtown New York was remarkable.

When he took over in 2021, the manager Phil Parkinson could not even put together a proper pre-season amid Covid, as he was struggling with the disease himself. This week he has taken on Manchester United, Leeds United in Tampa, Liverpool, and will end a two-week US tour against Sunderland in McElhenney’s hometown of Philadelphia on Sunday.

“The documentary has afforded us the opportunity to be able to amplify our messages and that has resonated with a global fan base,” Williamson said. “It’s captured the hearts and minds of millions of fans worldwide.

“Which is why we come to New York City, we had tremendous support in Tampa, but also in Australia, New Zealand and around the world. We have that kind of strong fan base that cares and is passionate about the club but, even more importantly, about the community. That’s what they’ve connected to. That’s what they’ve fallen in love with.

Liverpool are among three Premier League sides Wrexham have already faced on their pre-season tour, which culminates with Saturday’s friendly against another one, Sunderland Brad Penner/Imagn Images

“It just allows us to be able to say, ‘OK, we have a brand that isn’t your traditional Championship club brand.’ So that certainly allows us to have the opportunity to make strategic investments and growth.

“And that’s what we’re really doing. Investing in strategic growth. So when you look at it, it’s not all about the players. Of course we’ve had success in that, with Phil and his team, but what it also allowed us to do was invest off the pitch.”

That has been evidenced by, among other things, a huge new club shop in the centre of Wrexham, renovation of the stadium and big investments in training grounds and the women’s programmes, all of which will continue to feature in the documentary.

The documentary also explains how the latest Wrexham financial figures, at the end of the 2024-25 season when they were in League One, showed turnover of £33.3million, well over half of which was generated from outside the UK, primarily North America. Estimates for 2025-26 predict revenue of £43.9million.

Accordingly, the new Wrexham kit, revealed in the “Pelé Soccer” store on Times Square, has Firefox emblazoned across the front, replacing United Airlines as their sponsor. It is a long way from the shirt sponsor pre-takeover, Ifor Williams Trailers, for whom Reynolds produced a hilarious series of advertisements as consolation for ending their five-year deal. Given Reynolds’ hourly rate as a pitch person, it presumably equated to a multi-million-pound “golden goodbye” for the local company.

Wrexham owners McElhenney, left, and Reynolds are ambitious to lead the team into the top flight and then Europe Carl Recine/Getty Images

Of course, no amount of Hollywood glamour or “Q” rating — the marketing measure used in the US to gauge brand awareness — will help Parkinson win the fourth and surely hardest promotion of all, to the Premier League. But if there is a sense that Wrexham, whose new Kop stand will not be fully operational for another 12 months, have plateaued, their owners do not want to hear it.

“I was on a call and Ryan said, ‘Well, when we arrive in the Champions League…’ And I said, ‘We did already with the women’s team,’” Williamson said, laughing. “You keep setting new bars and new expectations. The truth is we can arrive at a very high level. We have so much momentum. We have so much support.

“We’re doing it in a different way and it’s going to allow us to arrive to a very high level pretty quickly. But what I’ve always said from the beginning is we need to make sure that on that journey we don’t leave the town behind. Because if we’re successful as a football club, but the town hasn’t grown with us, then we haven’t actually had success.

“For us to be a successful football club in the Premier League, in the top levels of the Premier League, we also need to make sure that the town is successful.”

For a day or two this week in New York, placing “Wrexham” and “Premier League”, or even “Champions League”, in the same sentence did not seem quite as preposterous as it once did. It may not have been Beatlemania, circa 1964, but this was one British export that, briefly at least, justifiably held top billing in one of the world’s greatest markets.