During his commentary on Wrexham vs Swansea, Ryan Reynolds joked that the show was going to feel 20 hours long. Unfortunately, he was right.
Welcome to Wrexham, folks, the only club who are allowed to run a party political broadcast on Sky Sports’ airwaves for an entire match without a hint of scrutiny.
Reynolds and his co-owner Rob McElhenney are charming chaps who love Wrexham and have rejuvenated the club beyond its wildest dreams. They seem down to earth and likeable. And money only takes you so far. They, manager Phil Parkinson, the players and the staff are building a great era for a club and community. For that they should be commended.
But what we saw on Friday night was offensive to football. Sky Sports, ever more fawning towards Wrexham, afforded the club an evening of self-indulgent, boastful, and tedious promotion. The broadcasters totally abdicated their responsibility to be balanced. That’s on them, not Wrexham. Any club would jump at the offer.
And so we heard how ‘brilliant’ Reynolds and McElhenney are, how much of a ‘handsome devil’ striker Kieffer Moore is, and a revisionist history of a proud Welsh city where apparently nobody knew how to smile half a decade ago. When Swansea striker Zan Vipotnik almost scored, Reynolds cried out: ‘That’s not what we want!’
It was not even an attempt at impartial broadcasting and, in fairness, it never claimed to be. Sky Sports aired a regular broadcast of the match on their main channel and advertised that during the stream. Fans did have a choice.
Those who chose to stay saw only partisanship. Giving credit to Reynolds and McElhenney, who were led in the broadcast by the brilliant David Prutton, they afforded an insight into their club that no external commentator could.
Sky Sports let Wrexham carry out a party political broadcast on Friday night
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney were allowed to commentate on their 2-0 win over Swansea on Sky Sports Football
Reynolds painted us a picture of Wrexham’s dressing room after their recent FA Cup defeat by Chelsea – a genuinely interesting nugget of information. ‘If you went in the locker room after the match, it looked like they’d come out of a war,’ he said.
McElhenney, meanwhile, took us on the journey of acquiring Wrexham. ‘I Googled how to buy a football club,’ he revealed. Oh, and he only learned what promotion and relegation are during the Covid-19 pandemic. It’s all insight.
But in short, it felt like a glorified version of what you’d see on a club’s internal TV channel. Former players in Ben Foster, Ben Tozer, and Steven Fletcher were wheeled out to reminisce about their experiences. Reynolds and McElhenney celebrated the goals with enthusiasm. Swansea, in whom Snoop Dogg recently took a stake, hardly got a mention in their 2-0 defeat.
You might ask why any of this matters. They’re hardly the worst owners – better these than some despotic regime or a foreign businessman who doesn’t care.
And if enough people enjoy it, so what? Some reviewers on social media liked it. Others seethed. ‘Think they’re renaming the channel to Sky Sports Wrexham,’ one viewer wrote.
It matters because this was another example of football being the sideshow to the entertainment industry in the modern era. It’s why we’re getting KSI buying Dagenham & Redbridge and streaming himself at their games. Why we’re getting half-time interviews in the Premier League. Why the World Cup final will have a half-time show.
It might sound harmless, but this shift is hurting fans. Take Manchester United, for example. To satisfy Sky Sports and the Premier League’s TV schedule, by the end of the campaign, they will have had just three Saturday 3pm home games in the space of two seasons. Fixtures are constantly rescheduled at late notice. Season-ticket holders groan.
The football industry finds itself facing an existential question: who, really, do we want to serve? Who do we exist for?
Clubs such as Port Vale received less attention for greater achievements in the FA Cup
Is it the people with the deepest pockets? The people who beat their chest the loudest? The people who court the cameras?
Maybe this is the endgame for a broadcaster which leans ever more into partiality. Pundits such as Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher, and Micah Richards, while fair and critical, leave us in no doubt about their allegiances. Detached observers are like gold dust in this era.
Even the FA Cup’s official account on X cosied up to Wrexham over the weekend. Their fixture against Chelsea received no fewer than 19 posts, four of them featuring Reynolds. One picture of him, McElhenney, and actress Blake Lively purred with the caption: ‘Name a more iconic trio.’ We can all probably think of a few.
Mansfield’s excellent run before defeat by Arsenal, Southampton’s win at Fulham, and Port Vale’s victory against Sunderland received less attention, despite being better sporting stories.
It’s time other clubs were given the same privileges. If Wrexham can have their own commentary on Sky Sports, who are supposed to be stewards of our beautiful game, then why not Swansea? Why not Lincoln and Wimbledon and Bromley?
Or here’s a better idea for the bosses at Osterley: leave the one-sided broadcasting to fan channels, who depend on that audience a lot more, and give your subscribers the informed, balanced broadcasting that they’re paying to see.
