Last Thursday, Wrexham missed the chance to go top of League One. A hard-fought derby defeat at Shrewsbury Town left them in third place, two points off the top at the time but three games further into the season than the leaders.
Birmingham City might be the biggest obstacle in the way of a historic third successive promotion for the Red Dragons. The Blues are relatively comfortable in first, having strengthened significantly since their relegation from the Championship.
Wycombe Wanderers’ defeat to Huddersfield Town helped to squeeze the race for the second automatic promotion spot. The Terriers are poised to pounce but the truth is nobody is going to make sense of the promotion battle beyond Birmingham until a large number of games in hand are played.
Wrexham vs Birmingham could one day make history
Birmingham have the advantage for the time being but Wrexham haven’t yet taken their eyes off the top prize. And, while the two clubs are in direct competition with Wycombe, Huddersfield, Barnsley, Reading and Stockport County for two places in the Championship, they share some important common ground.
The Blues are owned in part by American financier Tom Wagner, the club’s chairman and part-owner of Shelby Companies Limited, a subsidiary of Knighthead Investment, which owns almost 46 per cent of the football club.
Wrexham are majority owned by Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds, whose joint company holds 95 per cent of the company that owns the club and has now been backed up by the enormous wealth of the Allyn family, new minority investors.
When it comes to minority ownership, Birmingham’s ownership group played their hand early. Wagner has links to NFL legend Tom Brady, who became something of a public face of the new Birmingham City era despite owning around 3.3 per cent of the club and 100 per cent of a really awful coat.
It was reported last summer that a “senior figure at Birmingham City floated the idea of playing their League One fixture with Wrexham in the USA” but that no talks between either the Blues and EFL or the Blues and Wrexham had in fact taken place.
Nevertheless, it’s clear that Birmingham’s relegation and Wrexham’s promotion to the third tier brought together two sets of owners with a keen interest in reforming the broadcasting rules and embracing audiences overseas, not least in the United States.
Before Wrexham were promoted from the National League, Reynolds and the club were vocal about the limitations of television and streaming details. Wrexham, of course, have had their rise documented around the world since Reynolds and McElhenney bought in.
They’ve grown an unusual global support and are popular Stateside. Birmingham’s chairman might hope for a similar effect if the Blues do get promoted this season to enjoy the increased spotlight of the Championship, into which Brady would no doubt return.
Thursday night’s Wrexham vs Birmingham City fixture will be played in Wrexham but the next time it comes around, whatever division it’s in, the idea of moving it to the USA might be a step closer to a reality.
The rationale is obvious. The smart commercial play is to take a Birmingham City or Wrexham fixture across the Atlantic to capitalise on their overseas support. If both clubs share that characteristic and intent, so much the better. They’re certainly both inclined to think differently than the established English football norms.
In football, the smart commercial play usually wins out. If there is to be an EFL fixture played in the USA, a Wrexham home game against Birmingham – if they’re in the same division – has to be the clear favourite.
But there’s been no official statement of intent from either club and they would surely find that North Wales and Small Heath would be two hotspots of opposition to the idea.
Match-going supporters of both clubs have welcomed foreign ownership and are enjoyed the fruits of their investment in players who shouldn’t really be in League One. They would be less tolerant of efforts to take a game over the water.
English matches being played abroad is an unpopular idea in general. The Premier League’s Game 39 proposal was tabled in 2008 and ignited a ferocious response not only from supporters but also from a number of club managers.
The international round was additionally hamstrung by the fact that 20 teams playing 39 games each makes no mathematical sense and would therefore have destroyed the sporting balance of the Premier League season.
Both Wrexham and Birmingham have their sights set on the Premier League. If they make it, the idea of playing one of the more sensible 38 games elsewhere could be closer to reality.
It probably wouldn’t be a world first by then. The make-up of international ownership in the top two divisions in England has changed since 2008 and the global nature of the English game has created lucrative opportunities abroad, often in markets known intimately by those very owners.
For now, two of the third tiers must settle for scrapping it out at the Racecourse Ground.
