The phrase ‘Monday Night Football’ may be no stranger to heavyweight clashes but an all-time NFL great taking on Deadpool has to be a first.

This is Tom Brady tackling Ryan Reynolds, League One’s big spenders going head-to-head with Hollywood FC — or simply, Birmingham City versus Wrexham.

No matter how we dress up a fixture recently described on X by Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney as “an absolute banger”, Monday night’s showdown is a big deal on and off the pitch. Two clubs who are the very embodiment of globalised football will meet in a sellout clash that is being broadcast live on both sides of the Atlantic.

“A really, really high-profile match,” says CBS Sports executive vice president Dan Weinberg before Birmingham host Wrexham, which will be shown on two channels as part of the network’s four-year deal with the English Football League (EFL).

“We’ve carried every Wrexham game this season and we’ll continue to lean into them as much as we can. They are impossible to ignore in this country with the celebrity influence they have and the visibility of Ryan and Rob. We are enthused by the growth of their profile in the market.

“These two clubs have owners that resonate very well in this country.”

Not so long ago, few would have batted an eyelid in the United Kingdom over this particular Anglo-Welsh contest, never mind in the United States. The two clubs have very little shared history, other than the £1million City paid for Bryan Hughes in 1997 that remains Wrexham’s record transfer fee.

Now, though, the power of celebrity — plus back-to-back promotions for Wrexham and last May’s shock relegation for Birmingham — means this League One fixture carries plenty of intrigue.

Deadpool star Reynolds and McElhenney, through the success of the Emmy-award-winning Welcome to Wrexham documentary, have turned a previously provincial club into a global sensation with two successful pre-season tours of North America under their belts.

Birmingham are no less fascinating thanks to the 2023 takeover by Knighthead, the U.S. investment firm fronted by co-owner Tom Wagner and supported by minority investor Brady, the seven-time Super Bowl champion.

Relegation at the end of their first season was certainly not part of the script but it has done nothing to dim the group’s huge ambitions, which include building a new stadium after buying a 60-acre plot of land around a mile from St Andrew’s.

City clearly don’t intend on hanging around for long in the third tier, judging from the £20million ($26m) they splashed on transfers this summer. Around half of that is understood to have gone on wrestling striker Jay Stansfield from Fulham’s grasp, with Birmingham paying between £12m and £15m before add-ons.

To put that figure into context, the previous record paid by a club in this division before the recent window was the £4million Sunderland paid for Wigan Athletic striker Will Grigg.

GO DEEPER

How Birmingham shattered transfer records – and left English football in shock

Wrexham co-owner McElhenney will no doubt recall that particular signing due to it featuring heavily in series two of Sunderland ‘Til I Die, the Netflix show that first gave the comedy actor the idea of buying a football club.

His team have been no slouches with recruitment, either. The £2million spent during the summer window was an unprecedented outlay for Wrexham, made possible by last season’s annual revenue smashing through the £20million barrier. Blue-chip sponsors, such as United Airlines, contributed heavily to that club-record figure.

Both camps have been entering into the spirit during the build-up to Monday’s eagerly-anticipated encounter, with Wrexham enlisting the help of Eli Manning, a long-time NFL rival of Brady.

In response to Manning donning the Welsh club’s team shirt, Brady took to X and Instagram — where his combined following stands at 18 million — with a cheeky video featuring one of his prized Super Bowl trophies that ends with an appeal to McElhenney to “educate the Wrexham fans just a little bit on the history of the NFL?”

See you Monday! @BCFC @Wrexham_AFC @RMcElhenney @VancityReynolds https://t.co/Ny87RekOPR pic.twitter.com/YyvkWmL5JK

— Tom Brady (@TomBrady) September 14, 2024

AJ Swoboda, managing director of sports intelligence firm Twenty First Group, believes Wrexham are a prime example of how to tap into the U.S. market over the longer term.

“High-profile figures like Tom Brady or Ryan Reynolds will always help bring clubs into the spotlight,” he says. “Especially in crowded or foreign markets like the U.S.

“But, while celebrity owners generate a short-term buzz, long-term fan engagement requires sustained sporting success and smart marketing — largely digital — strategies.

“The Welcome to Wrexham docuseries has been key to growing Wrexham’s global fanbase but the club’s owners have then backed up these efforts through material sporting performance improvements.”

He cites how an analysis of Google Trends data over the last year shows Wrexham had 22 times the interest in the U.S. compared to Birmingham and 1.4 times that of Premier League neighbours Aston Villa, even though the latter have qualified for the Champions League.

“Tom Brady’s appeal and status should continue creating interest for Birmingham City in new markets,” adds Swoboda. “But, as with Wrexham, this attention needs to be converted into deeper fan engagement. Celebrity minority ownership is not as unique as it used to be.”

Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds became Wrexham’s owners in 2020 (Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)

As Wrexham co-owner McElhenney made clear when tagging Brady on X, Monday night’s clash under the St Andrew’s floodlights has all the ingredients to be a cracker — but, perhaps their biggest battle lies ahead.

In a recent report titled Connecting and Winning U.S. Fandoms: A Guidebook For European Clubs, fan data specialists CLV Group suggest that 36million U.S.-based soccer fans — or 44 per cent — are still undecided on which team to support. The group’s CEO Neil Joyce estimates a potential $1.1billion is up for grabs.

The big Premier League clubs or members of the European elite, such as Real Madrid, Barcelona and Paris Saint-Germain, are expected to hoover up a sizeable chunk of this bounty, but Joyce also believes clubs with high-profile celebrity owners, such as Wrexham and Birmingham, can earn a piece of the action.

“Wrexham’s story is phenomenal,” he says. “It has the underdog element, a club on the brink of extinction that starts to work its way back up. Americans love that kind of storytelling.

“Then, there’s the measurability of it all. United Airlines, one of the biggest airlines in the world, is on the jerseys. That kind of link makes a huge difference. I was on a flight with United earlier in the summer and they were handing out the (free amenity) bag with the Wrexham (pyjamas).

“It isn’t about just the match. It is the personalities around it. Look at how Taylor Swift has brought new fandom to the NFL (her partner Travis Kelce plays for the Kansas City Chiefs) in the same way Ryan Reynolds has brought Deadpool fans to Wrexham.

“Given the new EFL rights deal (with CBS), there will be a lot more exposure to Wrexham for sports fans in the U.S. They can tap into that. Same for Birmingham, with arguably the NFL’s greatest of all time.

“Look at Tom Brady’s adjacent sports investments. He has the (NFL team) Las Vegas Raiders, he has a WNBA team (Las Vegas Aces). Again, I’d be tapping into those fanbases and bringing them on the journey with Birmingham as well.”

As Joyce points out, central to making any potential inroads into the U.S. sports market is CBS Sports becoming the new home of the EFL. With 250-plus matches being shown live across the network per season for at least the next four years, the potential exposure is huge.

CBS does not reveal publicly viewing figures for individual matches but executive vice president Weinberg says he has been “really, really happy with the viewership in the first month”.

He believes a key factor in America’s increasing EFL curiosity is the promotion and relegation setup that sees clubs potentially move up and down the pyramid, such as how Birmingham dropped into League One last May and are now determined to bounce straight back up.

“The U.S. market has wrapped their arms around that,” says Weinberg, who is at pains to stress that showcasing all 72 EFL teams is important to the network. “It’s compelling and dramatic.”

Birmingham’s bid to win promotion straight back to the Championship is their season’s major plotline (Cameron Smith/Getty Images)

Recent years have seen a flurry of U.S. investors getting involved in the EFL. By last Christmas, 22 of the 72 teams were either wholly owned by or had minority investors from across the Atlantic. Fourteen of those had accepted new investment since Wrexham’s takeover in 2021.

“What Wrexham have done brilliantly is globalisation and diversification,” says Laurie Pinto, a specialist in football financing and club acquisitions. “That’s easier said than done. (Wrexham director) Shaun Harvey and others should get a lot of credit for that.

“There’s lots of people who think they can do the same. That’s the challenge: trying to make a global push with partners outside the UK to diversify the income stream.”

Asked if he felt future years will bring even more investment from North America, Pinto replies: “Yes, there is a lot more interest. Most of these American owners think global and they put money in.

“U.S. sport is expensive — if you want to buy a basketball, NFL or baseball team, we are talking in the billions.”

With the U.S. hosting the 2026 World Cup alongside Canada and Mexico, sports media analyst Larry Johnson believes the new four-year TV deal means EFL clubs are in a prime position to benefit.

“Viewership data from the last couple of World Cups shows a rise in popularity (in the U.S.) for sports in Europe,” he says. “They did quite a bit for La Liga and the Premier League, even a bit for the Bundesliga.

“All the arrows point towards the next World Cup pushing up the numbers on the Premier League and EFL. Wrexham have an opportunity here, especially if they get promoted this year, to really do something special.

“Wrexham are already drawing numbers. They had a friendly with Chelsea (in July 2023) on ESPN, one of the largest cable networks. It pulled 300,000 viewers. That’s comparable with a Major League Soccer game on the same network.”

As is perhaps inevitable in an age when regular-season games in the NFL and Major League Baseball are played in London, there has been talk of the Premier League or EFL possibly doing similar by switching one-off fixtures to the States.

Such a move would be hugely controversial. When the Daily Mail suggested this summer that Birmingham and Wrexham were in talks over a possible switch, Canada-born Reynolds was very quick to vehemently deny the story.

Wrexham’s international profile has led to high-profile friendlies against Premier League giants Chelsea (Lyndsay Radnedge/ISI Photos/Getty Images)

Nevertheless, such talk remains, with CLV Group’s Joyce believing it could help a European competition steal a march in attracting fans.

He says: “The monetary gain and attempts to capture the market would be a lot easier if European clubs played competitive games in the U.S. There is more than $1billion on the table.”

Such talk about growing audiences and realising potential is, of course, for the boardoom. On the pitch, all that will matter come Monday evening are the three points.

Dan Scarr joined Wrexham in the summer from Plymouth Argyle, where he won the League One title in 2023. He is a lifelong Birmingham fan who spent three years on the playing staff at St Andrew’s after arriving late in the professional game at 22.

“What’s been going on there is crazy,” the defender tells The Athletic. “Good for the city and, being a Birmingham City fan, it is great for them. The atmosphere will be electric and it’s a sellout. There’s also the bragging rights between the owners, both being American and stuff like that.

“But we want to stop that (title-winning) parade. Everything else doesn’t matter.”

GO DEEPER

Why are U.S. athletes buying stakes in English football clubs?

Advertisement

(Top photos: Getty Images)

The records keep on coming for Indiana Fever rookie guard Caitlin Clark.

Having already broken the record for most assists in a single game and assists by a rookie in their debut season, Clark set the WNBA single-season assists record Friday against the Las Vegas Aces.

Clark needed four assists to tie the prior record (316), which Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas set last season. Clark broke the record in the second quarter when she found Kelsey Mitchell, who drained a 3 pointer. Clark finished with nine assists as the Fever lost 78-74 to the Aces, bringing her total to 321 on the season.

That another single-season record fell on Friday night was fitting. On Wednesday night, when the Fever and Aces matched up for the first time this week, Las Vegas star A’ja Wilson set a new single-season points mark. Countless other WNBA records have been reset over the last two seasons since the regular season expanded to 40 games.

“You’re just going to continue to see records be taken down, but also I think really good basketball, and that’s why it’s been so fun to watch,” Clark said postgame when asked about the records broken in the WNBA this season.

When the WNBA began in 1997, the season was 28 games long. The next year it was 30 games, then the year after that, 32, which lasted through 2002. The regular season had 34 games from 2003 to 2019. Courtney Vandersloot tallied 300 assists in 2019 and had a record of 258 in 2018, but before those two standout seasons, a player hadn’t recorded more than 250 assists since 2000. Ticha Penicheiro, who had the prior single-season rookie assist record, recorded 236 assists in 2000.

The moment Caitlin Clark broke the WNBA single-season assists record 👏#IONWNBA | @IndianaFever pic.twitter.com/CvddhlLBpG

— WNBA on ION (@IONWNBA) September 14, 2024

Clark has set countless other records this season. She recorded the first triple-double for a rookie in WNBA history in early July against the New York Liberty. In late August, she set the rookie 3-point single-season record against the Atlanta Dream. Clark became the first rookie in WNBA history to record 400 points, 100 rebounds and 150 assists in a season, and she has recorded the most 15-point 5-assist games in a season.

She could make more history, too, including the rookie scoring record for points in a season, a mark set by Seimone Augustus in 2006 when she scored 744 points — albeit in 34 games.

GO DEEPER

Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking WNBA season: The history she’s made and the marks she’s chasing

As notable as any individual statistics, Indiana entered Friday night’s contest having won eight of its last 11 games, with the best offensive rating of any team in the league since the All-Star break. After a 2-9 start, the Fever have also climbed to the No. 6 seed in the playoffs. They have already clinched a playoff berth — their first since 2016 — and could finish with their first winning season since 2015, when they made the WNBA Finals.

“It’s definitely a big moment for this place, but at the same time, I came in with the expectation this was going to happen,” Clark said of guiding Indiana back to the postseason. “For me, this isn’t a party. It’s great, I feel like it’s a great accomplishment, but there’s much more left to be done.”

Required reading

(Photo: Justin Casterline / NBAE via Getty Images)

It was the scene none of us wanted to see: Tua Tagovailoa incapacitated on the football field after another collision and blow to the head.

But there we found ourselves late Thursday night, watching in fear of the Miami Dolphins quarterback’s well-being as medical personnel tended to him after his third-quarter scramble and collision with Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin. Immediately, memories and mental images of Tagovailoa’s 2022 concussions rushed back.

The heart-stopping fear that his family members must have experienced at that moment is hard to fathom. But everyone from current to former NFL players, fans and anyone in between sympathized.

Tagovailoa eventually was helped to his feet, and he limped off the field under his own power. Just before the quarterback reached the sideline, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel had a brief word with his player, “I told him he’s the starting quarterback of his family, and to ‘Go in the locker room, take a deep breath and I’ll see you soon.’” With that, McDaniel kissed Tagovailoa on the head and turned him over to the trainers, who ushered him to the locker room for evaluation.

.@KayleeHartung provides an update on Tua Tagovailoa. pic.twitter.com/hiEnuq9ISC

— NFL on Prime Video (@NFLonPrime) September 13, 2024

Advertisement

McDaniel’s emotions were impossible to hide for the remainder of the game and during his postgame news conference. McDaniel immediately fielded questions about how the Dolphins would approach Tagovailoa’s recovery, but he said only that he expected Tagovailoa to go through extensive evaluations on Friday, and that the Dolphins would then approach the situation and the quarterback’s care “one day at a time.”

Now faced with how to handle their quarterback after a third known concussion in three seasons, Dolphins leadership finds itself in an extremely difficult position. It must wait to learn how this latest concussion will impact the 26-year-old quarterback and then grapple with the decision of when/if he should return to the field.

The Dolphins and their doctors no doubt will work hard to avoid a repeat of 2022, when Tagovailoa seemingly was allowed to return to action prematurely and then sustained at least one other concussion. (Those decisions sparked a joint investigation by the NFL and NFL Players Association’s medical examiners.)

If you recall, it was Week 3 of that 2022 season when Tagovailoa sustained a blow that left him stumbling and struggling to maintain his balance after an injury that the Dolphins classified as a back injury, although something about that diagnosis always felt off. Tagovailoa started the following game before eventually sustaining a sack that caused his back and back of his helmet to hit the ground. Tagovailoa’s body involuntarily went into the fencing response before he was taken off the field on a stretcher. Then in Week 16, Tagovailoa sustained another concussion and missed the final two regular-season games and Miami’s playoff game.

If the Dolphins learned anything from that Week 3 and 4 sequence, it’s that medical exams and league-mandated protocols aren’t always as all-encompassing or as foolproof as one would hope. So this time measures that may even seem extreme are required as they navigate this latest brain injury recovery with their quarterback.

Almost immediately after Tagovailoa’s injury Thursday night, social media erupted with opinions from former players, including Hall of Fame tight end Tony Gonzalez, who covered the game for Amazon Prime, and fans who suggested that Tagovailoa should retire — never playing football again. The risk of the quarterback returning to action and suffering another (and possibly more devastating) concussion seems to far outweigh the rewards of a continued playing career, they believe.

GO DEEPER

Former players call for Tagovailoa to retire

It’s not so simple, however. How do you tell a young man that he’s unfit for work? How do you tell him that he can no longer live his dream?

Tagovailoa certainly has proved he’s capable of playing at an elite level. He led the NFL in passing yards last season and had gotten off to another prolific start in Week 1. But his injury history suggests that his body isn’t designed to hold up under the rigors of this violent game.

There’s a fine line between supporting a player while allowing him to live his life and make his decisions and protecting a player from himself. Determining where that differentiating line falls is painfully complicated and perhaps impossible to determine.

Tua Tagovailoa led the NFL in passing yards last season and was the league’s leader through Week 1 of this season. (Jasen Vinlove / USA Today)

It’s an unenviable position for the Dolphins, who earlier this summer agreed to a four-year, $212.4 million contract extension with the quarterback. The deal is the last thing on anyone in the organization’s minds at this time. Protecting and supporting a member of their family in hopes he returns to full health and maintains the ability to lead a quality life tops their priority list.

The Dolphins can’t abide by the usual return-to-play concussion protocol, which entails daily monitoring and benchmarks and a gradual ramp-up of physical activity and potential clearance for game action by the end of the same week.

It seems like the Dolphins’ doctors should mandate extensive and the most sophisticated testing possible to learn as much about Tagovailoa’s brain and recovery process before they let him set foot anywhere so much as a treadmill. The problem is that concussion-related brain damage is often difficult to detect even with the most modern forms of technology. But extreme care is needed, even if the quarterback is no longer exhibiting concussion symptoms.

For now, it’s far too early to know what the recovery timeline looks like. McDaniel said Friday that he didn’t even know if the Dolphins would place the quarterback on injured reserve (a minimum of four games) to ensure he doesn’t attempt to rush back.

“I literally will not know any sort of anything either way, because, again, that’s how we’re operating, as though we know nothing — because we don’t,” the coach said. “The driving force behind any sort of move — let’s say playing anytime, let’s say IR, whatever those things are — the absolute most important opinion is that of the most important person in this whole equation: Tua. His opinion of what he wants to do with his life and his career, coupled with the experts in neuroscience — those are the driving forces behind those actions. … I’m not hiding anything. I’m being as transparent as I absolutely could. I have zero idea what any sort of timeline is, and I’m actually extremely motivated to be in the gray, because I’m extremely motivated to do right by, you know, the person that we’re talking about. I know that’s not an ideal way to do business, necessarily. But this is more than business.”

McDaniel added, “Literally all I’m telling Tua is, ‘Everyone is counting on you to be a dad this weekend,’ and then we’ll move from there.”

GO DEEPER

‘It’s trauma. It will always be there’: Damar Hamlin’s routine hit on Tua Tagovailoa a scary reminder

If Tagovailoa does ultimately decide he wants to continue playing and doctors allow it, then the Dolphins must do everything possible to protect him, which means bringing him along at a painstakingly slow pace to help guard against setbacks, and perhaps making him wear a Guardian Cap in games over his already specialized helmet. But that’s just the start.

They have invested in him heavily at this point. His contract features $167 million that is guaranteed for injury, including $43 million that has been paid this year. Even if the team forced him to retire for medical reasons, it would owe Tagovailoa the remaining $124 million of guaranteed money on his contract. If he chooses to retire on his own, he would forfeit that money, unless he and the team reached an injury settlement. So, the only move is to exercise patience and support.

McDaniel explained, “I look at Tua as a family member of mine,” and his sentiments are shared by those within the Dolphins’ organization. So for now, the necessary moves are to ensure the well-being of the man takes precedence over any football matters. Then, eventually those decisions will come.

If only there was a way to guarantee that the Dolphins quarterback never has to endure a similar episode in the future.

(Top photo of Mike McDaniel kissing Tua Tagovailoa as he exits the field: Megan Briggs / Getty Images)