Wrexhams new sponsors demonstrate why the TV show is their biggest commercial asset

Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground will have a new name next season for the second time in its history following a lucrative sponsorship deal that is expected to earn the club a substantial seven-figure sum.

SToK Cold Brew Coffee has paid for the naming rights to the Welsh club’s historic home stadium. They join Betty Buzz on the roster of new sponsors following yesterday’s announcement that the beverage company set up by Blake Lively, the Gossip Girl star and wife of co-owner Ryan Reynolds, will not only feature on the new training kit for the men and women’s teams in the 2023-24 campaign, but also the hospitality suite used by the co-chairmen on a matchday as well as sponsoring the upcoming U.S. tour.

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With further big-money sponsorship agreements, including the prestigious front-of-shirt slot for next season, due to be revealed before close of business on Monday, these are heady financial days for the newly promoted club owned by Reynolds and Rob McElhenney.

But what does all this mean for Wrexham, their supporters and the rest of League Two? The Athletic takes a look…

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Another day, another sponsorship

Yes, and a biggie. Naming rights for a club’s home stadium are always a huge deal for supporters, so SToK Cold Brew, owned by Danone North America, becoming the official sponsor of the Racecourse Ground will not have been a decision taken lightly. From July 1, the world’s oldest international football stadium will be known as SToK Cae Ras to a Welsh-speaking audience and SToK Racecourse for the rest.

Wrexham’s individual stands have been sponsored for some time, with Wrexham Lager signing a three-year deal in 2021 to re-brand the Yale Stand with their own name. Macron, the club’s kit supplier, also extended their own sponsorship of the Mold Road Stand in February for another year, but this is the first time the entire stadium has been given a new branding.

As ever with these things, no figure has been put on the sponsorship, but we are likely to be talking a figure towards the upper end of the £1million to £9million ($1.2m to $11.1m) bracket that will be spread across a multi-year deal. Selling the naming rights to the Racecourse brings another welcome boost to the coffers ahead of the club’s return to the EFL (English Football League) following a 15-year absence.

Wrexham being sponsored by a company set up by a co-owner’s wife feels… unusual? Mike Ashley and Sports Direct springs to mind…

Hardly. The sponsorship in question — training kit, hospitality suite — is likely to be among the more low-profile/low-cost agreements Wrexham will strike this summer. But the swap is like-for-like, as Betty Buzz is effectively replacing American Aviation Gin — a company Reynolds retains an ownership interest in after it was acquired by Diageo in September 2020 — as the name on both the training kit and suite where the co-chairmen watch the game.

Can we expect more?

Oh, yes. The club have dubbed this ‘Rising Week — Partners in Promotion’, a play on words featuring a line from fans’ anthem ‘Wrexham Is The Name’.

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Following on from Betty Buzz and SToK Cold Brew, the plan is to release further partnership deals on Friday and then Monday next week. The weekend will be taken up by the two Racecourse dates headlined by American rockers Kings of Leon.

Any hint as to what other partnerships are likely to be announced?

Shirt sponsorships will definitely feature. The deal that has seen TikTok displayed on the front of the team’s shirts for the past two seasons expires this summer. Likewise, Expedia also signed up for two years in 2021 to have their name on the back of the shirts. Both were huge coups for a National League club when agreed, the two blue chip companies having been lured in by not only the chance to associate with the two Hollywood owners but also the promise of the Welcome to Wrexham documentary that was due to be screened after the 2021-22 season had been completed.

Two-year contracts for both shirt sponsors was a deliberate strategy by the club, as it meant this summer’s discussions would take into account the impact of the first series.

How much did Wrexham earn from sponsorship last season?

The accounts for the promotion year won’t be out until spring 2024, but the financial figures for 2021-22 — the most recently published accounts — can be used as a decent gauge, as this 12-month period included not only the existing stand sponsorship deals with Wrexham Lager and Macron, but also the first year of the TikTok and Expedia contracts. The income from sponsorship and advertising, according to the accounts for the year to June 30, 2022, stood at £1.05million, as part of an overall turnover of £6million. It is likely to have been similar for the promotion campaign.

Can we deduce this sponsorship figure will rise for 2023-24?

Probably several times over. Thanks, in the main, to the success of the documentary in building a global audience for Wrexham, a point underlined by how coachloads of fans from the U.S. and Canada continue to arrive at the Racecourse, even on a non-match day.

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The hierarchy have long regarded the documentary as Wrexham’s “biggest commercial asset”, even though the club did not receive any money directly from the first series. That was never the intention when Wrexham were taken over in February 2021. Instead, the plan was always to use the global exposure provided by a show broadcast on FX in the U.S. and Disney+ in the UK to drive the club’s commercial operations, be that sponsorship, selling shirts or the streaming of live matches.

So far, this approach has worked wonders. On the retail front, the club’s order of 24,000 shirts for last season proved wholly inadequate. As a result, another 11,000 were ordered several months ago for the upcoming 2023-24 campaign, but even that might not be enough to meet the incredible demand, particularly from overseas.

The same goes for sponsorship, with the huge success of the documentary — and all indications suggest the upcoming second series featuring the promotion year will be another big hit — meaning Wrexham have fielded enquiries from sponsors that wouldn’t look out of place in the Premier League.

It remains to be seen whether TikTok and Expedia renew their existing contracts, but the revenue from any new shirt sponsor is likely to dwarf what has been earned over the past two years, particularly when it comes to that prestigious front-of-shirt slot.

How much of a help will this expected rise in sponsorship income be?

Huge. After operating in a competition for 15 years where there are basically no restrictions on spending, Wrexham will now be subject to the EFL’s Salary Cost Management Protocol. Under these rules, League Two clubs are restricted to spending 55 per cent of turnover on their playing budget.

Critics of the Welsh club have jumped on this as a means of preventing Phil Parkinson from outspending his peers, as he did in the National League when pursuing the likes of Paul Mullin, Elliot Lee and Eoghan O’Connell. The opposite, however, is likely to be the case and sponsorship will play a big part.

With the Racecourse likely to be packed to its 10,500 capacity every home game again next season and retail sales booming, Wrexham’s income from those two areas will compare favourably with most of their fourth-tier peers.

Then there’s the £1.1million central funding that all clubs in League Two receive per season to cover their share of TV income/sponsorship and the annual Premier League solidarity payment. In Wrexham’s case, this is effectively ‘new’ income for the balance sheet as any central funding in the National League was minuscule in comparison.

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Throw in the new sponsorship deals being announced this week and it is hard to imagine any League Two club enjoying an income stream as large as Wrexham’s.

Even if we use the 2021-22 turnover of £6million for the Welsh club as a base, this would equate to a playing budget of £3.3million under the ’55 per cent rule’. At a level of the football pyramid where the average wage bill stands at a little under £2million and even the most well-supported, Bradford City, spent £2.3million on salaries in 2021-22, this increased spending power should be a huge advantage.

There is a caveat to the EFL rules, in that donations and injections of equity from owners can be included in the annual turnover figure. But, again, it is hard to imagine anyone eclipsing Wrexham’s spending power thanks to this summer’s sponsorship bonanza.

(Top photo: Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)

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