​Wrexham director Humphrey Ker believes the TV series chronicling the club’s journey has helped boost football’s popularity in the United States. Welcome to Wrexham follows the North Wales club’s ascent through the leagues under Hollywood owners Rob McElhenney (formerly McElhenney) and Ryan Reynolds, and its fifth season, which debuted earlier this year, has proven to be a hit in the U.S. according to Ker, a development he describes as “really important” for the Championship club.
Ker says the show’s success is fundamentally about attracting American interest in what is happening at Wrexham. He also credits another popular television series, Ted Lasso, with contributing to raising football’s profile across the Atlantic, particularly as this summer’s World Cup helped the sport ride a wave of momentum in the United States. He suggests that the two programs have together highlighted to American audiences the distinctive aspects of football that set it apart from American sports.
In his view, Rob McElhenney’s fascination with promotion and relegation—the system that does not exist in American sports—was a key draw. Ker explained that McElhenney was intrigued by the idea when he became involved with Wrexham. “They are closed shops,” Ker noted, describing American professional leagues that operate with annual drafts and rotating final standings. “What is great about the closed-shop system is you’ll see the way they do things with their drafts; every year, pretty much, it’s different teams who make the final.”
But Ker also pointed out a drawback: in such closed systems, long stretches of a season can feel inconsequential. “The minus side,” he said, “is that you have huge swathes of the seasons that are just dead rubbers—it doesn’t matter.” For Rob McElhenney, the solution was to frame promotion and relegation as a compelling narrative. “A big thing for Rob was, ‘Wait a second, you’re saying the last few games of the season, if it’s 17 versus 18 in the table, that’s a massive game? If it’s eight versus 20, that’s a massive game?’” Ker recounted. He emphasized that in a regular league, almost no match feels unimportant, and American fans have taken notice of that dynamic.
Ker argues that this sense of high-stakes competition translates well for American viewers who follow domestic leagues in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, and Spain. He believes the Welcome to Wrexham series, alongside the broader appeal of European football’s structures, helps bridge cultural gaps and showcases both the drama and the nuance of the sport to a U.S. audience. The combination of Wrexham’s on-field narrative and the comparative differences between American sports and football’s global, promotion-driven system has, in Ker’s view, contributed to increasing American curiosity and engagement with the game.
As the series continues to resonate in the United States, Ker remains optimistic about the broader impact on Wrexham and English football’s reach abroad. He sees a tangible opportunity for the club to leverage its compelling story to expand its fan base, attract partnerships, and elevate the profile of the league in foreign markets. In short, the Washington-born director believes Welcome to Wrexham has become a powerful conduit for showcasing what makes football distinct and appealing to American viewers, while also helping to spotlight the excitement and competitiveness that define Wrexham’s journey in the English football pyramid.