“Are they going to love the club like we do?” one Wrexham Football Club supporter asked of the team’s new owners, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney, when the pair bought the struggling Welsh outfit in 2021.
It’s a fair question for fans to ask, especially when it comes to outsiders looking to take over a team to which people have devoted years of dogged loyalty and enormous emotional capital. A team like the Ottawa Senators, say.
In the case of the Wrexham AFC, the answer appears to be yes. “I’ve only been owner of a football club for a short time,” Reynolds said partway through the club’s first season under his co-ownership, “but so far I’ve found it to be very time-consuming, emotionally exhausting, financially idiotic and utterly addictive.”
But what happens if our imagined future with Deadpool as co-owner of the Ottawa Senators crashes onto the rocks before we’ve even exchanged vows and eaten from the nuptial cake? Are we prepared for that kind of anguish?
It’s not surprising that Ottawa fans have glommed hard onto Reynolds, the face of Toronto-based developer The Remington Group’s bid to buy the club, but they’re only one of a half dozen groups reportedly in the mix to take over from the estate of Eugene Melnyk. The one-time fiancé of Ottawa entertainment export Alanis Morissette, Reynolds ticks a lot of boxes beyond being People magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive in 2010. He’s funny, self-deprecating and seemingly genuine and unrehearsed. He’s a businessman, to be sure, but not in the mold of most sports franchise owners you read about, or have experienced here in Ottawa. He’s entertaining. He’s likeable. His business suit is red-and-black lycra, not boring grey pinstripes.
Meanwhile, the experiment in Wrexham has made clear that he understands and values the bond between sports teams and their communities and fans. And as a bonus, he’s also kind and caring, as exemplified by the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award he received in 2021 in recognition of his philanthropy. And that was BEFORE he and his wife, actor Blake Lively, gave a half million dollars to Water First, a Canadian charity that helps Indigenous communities resolve local water challenges.
In other words, this guy’s a dream date that we could take home to meet Mom and Dad without any qualms. But you know what they say about things that seem too good to be true. They very often are.
Not that Reynolds isn’t all those things. But Ottawa isn’t typically the recipient of all those things. A bureaucratic town, we’ve historically been teased with promissory notes wrapped in red tape and delivered sporadically on trains with square wheels and broken doors. We get the basic dealer models, without any of the optional upgrades. Remember in 2003, when Melnyk rode into town and rescued the Sens from receivership? We can be grateful for that, for sure, but he never really embraced the community in the way Reynolds and McElhenney have in Wrexham.
I think back to 2007, when the Senators reached the Stanley Cup finals. It was such an exciting time to be a hockey fan in Ottawa, with the bustle of the Sens Mile on Elgin Street, and the decorated houses, lawns and vehicles — and fans — everywhere. It was excitement and expectation created and maintained by the fans (and, of course, the team’s success), though, not ownership.
There was undoubtedly a great deal of disappointment in Ottawa after the series ended, but there was nonetheless satisfaction at having been so close. Besides, there would always be next year — right? — the annual clarion call of fans of 31 of the league’s 32 teams.
Well, if Reynolds’s bid isn’t successful, it’s unlikely there’ll be another chance next season, or the following one, or the one after that.
Even if the bid by Reynolds and Remington is the leading one, there are still a handful of others with deep pockets, headed by the likes of billionaires Michael Andlauer and Steve Apostolopoulos. Are they going to love the club like we do, and as the Hollywood actor appears to? That question might be irrelevant with a high enough bidding price.
I don’t mean to pour cold water on the love affair. Having Reynolds as part of the team’s future could be such a positive driver. Just ask the folks in Wrexham. I’m just saying we should be ready with two towels as we watch the change of ownership unfold: one to wave and cheer him on, and one to cry into if his bid fails.
Soucre: ottawacitizen.com
