The fifth season of *Welcome to Wrexham* arrives with the Welsh club just one step away from the Premier League, yet the documentary’s greatest triumph remains its ability to weave together sporting ambition and the human stories of a revitalized city. Forget the victories over now-promoted Premier League sides Coventry City and Ipswich Town, or even the FA Cup penalty shootout win against Europa League semifinalists Nottingham Forest. The biggest result of Wrexham’s season arguably came last month when FX ordered three more series of the show that has chronicled the ownership of Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney from the very beginning.
The documentary has fundamentally changed the landscape in north Wales. The global audience drawn in by the series—which begins its fifth run this week on FX and Hulu in the U.S. and Disney+ in the U.K.—has fueled Wrexham’s remarkable rise from non-League to the Championship at record-breaking speed. Revenue streams have skyrocketed even though the club has never received a single penny directly from the show. Blue-chip sponsors flocked to the spotlight, pushing income to £33.35 million (about $45 million) in the last available accounts for 2024-25, briefly a League One record for a club without parachute payments before Birmingham City surpassed it. Club insiders estimate annual revenue has since climbed to between £46 million and £50 million ($63 million to $68 million), all despite the Championship’s lowest average attendance.
None of this would have happened without FX’s initial two-series order back before McElhenney, inspired by watching Netflix’s *Sunderland ‘Til I Die*, even emailed Reynolds in May 2020 to ask if the *Deadpool* star wanted in. The show now moving into extra time—especially by sports-documentary standards, given that even *Sunderland* ran only three series over seven years—is big news for a club whose ambitious owners have openly stated their aim to reach the Premier League. Series five returns with that top table of English football now tantalizingly close.
“An incredible thing has happened here,” says lifelong Wrexham fan and TV broadcaster Bryn Law at the start of the first of three episodes released to media ahead of the May 14 North American launch. “Ar