Credit: The Football Foundation YouTube
David Moffett wants to sit down with Ryan Reynolds and pitch him on bringing elite rugby league to Wrexham. The former Welsh Rugby Union chief believes he can recreate the attendance boom and infrastructure transformation that Reynolds and Rob McElhenney delivered to Wrexham AFC. But wanting the Reynolds effect and actually getting it are two very different things.
Moffett’s plan centers on using the Racecourse Ground year-round, with rugby league filling the summer months when football traditionally goes quiet. He told rugbyleaguehub.com that he’d like to approach Reynolds about the ground being “used 52 weeks of the year because rugby league is played in the summer.” The proposal depends on several moving parts aligning, including potential NRL involvement in Super League restructuring and blessing from the Rugby Football League.
What Reynolds actually built at Wrexham
The transformation Moffett wants to tap into is real and measurable. Match day attendance at Wrexham jumped from roughly 4,000 fans to over 9,000 under Reynolds and McElhenney’s ownership. One club representative noted in a Premier League production that “we never in our wildest dreams thought that we’d have crowds like this.”
But those crowds came because Reynolds invested in a project he genuinely cared about, not because he was looking to diversify a sports portfolio. The infrastructure improvements at the Racecourse focused on disability access, safety upgrades, and long-term football development. Every pound spent pointed toward one goal: getting Wrexham AFC up the football pyramid.
Why this pitch faces steep odds
Moffett’s proposal asks Reynolds to split his attention and resources between two sports at a venue already committed to an active football project. The summer scheduling sounds convenient until you consider that’s when pitch maintenance happens, when pre-season training camps run, and when stadium improvements get completed without disrupting match days.
Embed from Getty ImagesMore fundamentally, there’s no evidence Reynolds has any interest in rugby league or wants to replicate what he built in football. The attendance boom and infrastructure investment happened because two Hollywood investors fell in love with a specific football club’s story. Moffett is betting that success formula can transfer to a sport where Wrexham already tried and failed once before, when Crusaders RL folded after just three seasons in Super League.Moffett can certainly ask for the meeting. Reynolds might even take it. But the Reynolds effect at Wrexham wasn’t about finding any project to back in north Wales. It was about two owners pouring themselves into one club’s football dream. That kind of lightning doesn’t strike twice just because someone shows up with a different shaped ball.
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