Yet another promotion party: Wrexham AFC CEO Michael Williamson

0:04Hello and welcome to another episode of the leaders in sport from leaders in sport. My name is James Emmett. I'm the editorial director here at Leaders and with me as ever in the glowing blurple lights of the Leaders studio is my great good colleague David Cushman. David, how are you? I'm very well, thank you. Struggling slightly with the blurple lights in the studio. Yeah. And I can't work out whether that's the lights or my new glasses. Have you got new specs on? The lights are really bouncing off them. Tell me about the rationale. I noticed that you're following my favourite glasses provider, Low House.

0:40Yes. on Instagram. But those don't look like low house. Slightly out of my budget range. Okay. Yeah. So talk me through the rationale behind the frame shape, I'm going to say. You've gone for sort of oblong. I've gone for the same style, essentially. It worked before. I think I don't like to talk about myself as a brand, but I think it's important for the brand to, you know, not veer off in a completely different direction. If there was a sort of brand sentiment behind the shape of those lenses. Yes. I would go with international sexy. Agreed. Okay. David, I noted we launched Leaders Week, the next iteration.

1:19The next edition. It comes around, honestly, it comes around so quickly. I mean, it's not October yet. There's a long time to go until October. We've launched Leaders Week for another year. A big splash last week. Speakers announced, et cetera. It's going to happen again beginning 29th of September until 2nd of October. It's a Twickenham. Yes. But I noted in the copy, in the general sort of marketing bump about it, we're using this line about leaders in sport from leaders in sport. And I sort of, I noted your magpie claw there, maybe just sort of picking that out of the podcast copy and popping it into the, do we call it an event?

2:01We call it a summit. We call it a summit. Yeah. Was that you? I couldn't possibly comment. Okay. What's going on, David? what's what's new apart from your new lenses and the fact that we've launched leaders week new lenses um i have been what have i been watching sport wise do you know i've been watching a reasonable amount of snooker it's the world snooker championships and i do think i mean there's nothing particularly innovative about the bbc's coverage of the world snooker championship hazel irvine my god it's good yeah it's just so good the commentary the presentation the you know even the camera angles yeah and of course the you know the the atmosphere of the crucible theater sort of yeah you know they are able to convey that i think so so well yeah it's so underrated as a sports watch i think a lot of chat on um one of my new it's in my new um it's in my podcast rotation the new sport business podcast i thought you do want to give a shout out a snooker podcast no i don't know i wouldn't know where to find that um no i've been listening to the new sport business podcast um with uh callum mccarthy martin ross et al and it really is very good very balanced very comprehensive and martin was talking about um the world snooker championships and really now is the time for them to consider a new venue and get with the commercial times get out of sheffield uh and go somewhere else and i have to say i think i'm with him on this um there can't be too many snooker traditionalists around these days to uh to say no um well we went up there didn't we a couple years ago we did note at the time and i think we probably said it on the podcast that it's very much an older crowd um that we went up we went up with the we were the youngest people by didn't we go up with the tifosi on the train there were there were these chaps drinking cans on the train three people you know three younger people on the train.

3:58But in general, it's quite an old audience, in-person audience. And not surprising because a lot of it takes place, you know, in the week, in the weekdays. Barry Hearn inevitably has, as he always does at this time of year, used the opportunity of snooker being in the news to apply some public pressure to Sheffield and Sheffield City Council in particular. He wants them ultimately to um either completely knock down and rebuild the crucible which they won't do because it hosts you know theater around the around the calendar um or build an entirely new snooker uh suitable uh and much bigger auditorium but hern has been very clear he says and has been quoted this week as saying the venue is no longer fit for purpose but that ideally the world snooker or want to stay in Sheffield.

4:52I'm not sure the two things are compatible. So again, then it becomes a question of where do you, where would you move this? Where could you move this tournament to? Well, it looks like there's another rising tide of Chinese players. Yes, indeed. Which there's an obvious place where they might like to play and be popular. And also it's a little while since we talked about Saudi money in snooker and Saudi money being filtered through Matrim into kind of all sorts of wacky. It's very interesting. There seems to be a lack of Riyadh season PIF branding at the snooker this year, whereas last year there was a lot.

5:25So I don't know whether there's been a change of status there or the dynamics have changed somewhat. But that has been noted that, you know, we're not seeing as much Saudi branding, if any, certainly within the crucible. Yeah. On the show today, we are going to welcome on very shortly Michael Williamson, who's the chief executive of Wrexham AFC. Now, they're a League One soccer club. Yes, they are. who've just been promoted just this last weekend. They've been promoted to the championship. It's a historic promotion. The only time in the history of England's top divisions of football that club has gone back to back to back in terms of getting promoted.

6:13And I don't know whether you know about Wrexham, but they're owned by a couple of chaps who are in film and TV. No way. Yes. So there's a little bit of a hullabaloo around them. Well, we thought we'd phone Michael up and get his almost instant reaction to promotion because there's a lot to celebrate and there's a lot going on at the club. And yes, you're right, because of the owners. Are we going to name them? Perhaps we won't. There's outsized interest, I think, in everything Wrexham does on the pitch and off the pitch. Well, it is a totally new, but it's Rob and Ryan, isn't it? Rob McElhenney and Ryan Reynolds.

6:50and their success on the pitch was a novelty, I would say, and it was a nice sort of centrepiece for the documentary that they were filming around it. Now I think it has provided, certainly the LinkedIn AI-generated think pieces would have me believe that it is a new model for football ownership, this, what they're doing there-ish. Yeah, there's a lot. M-ish. There's a lot of words written about Wrexham. And I do wonder whether the, you know, as the club moves from lower league status now next season into the second tier of English football, whether some of the outside of its own fan base, whether some of the, you know, the positive noise, the sort of halo effect around Wrexham because of the documentary, because of the owners, might start to dissipate as people realise, especially fans of clubs in the Premier League and the Championship, that actually, hang on, now they are all of a sudden contenders and rivals rather than this sort of slight novelty, you know, two or three divisions below them.

7:57Yes, there is a quality to them. So having a soft spot for a lower league club, there is definitely an animus amongst fans of other teams in the division that Wrexham happen to operate in at any given point versus Wrexham. People want to beat them. And I think you've had that, you know, in two cases in League One in England this year in that Wrexham will actually finish second in League One and the champions of Birmingham City, who are another club with sort of celebrity connections, you might say, because Tom Brady is, of course, part of the ownership group led by Tom Wagner at Knighthead Capital there.

8:40And so you've got two clubs there who from a, certainly from a financial point of view and a famous owner point of view, have almost, you know, to an extent been operating in the wrong league this year, and have therefore, you know, perhaps unsurprisingly, got promoted from it. Yeah. Anyway, Michael is coming up to one year in the role of CEO at Wrexham. He's a seasoned soccer executive American man but he has had senior roles at various major league soccer teams he also crucially has spent plenty of time in the higher reaches of European soccer he was at Inter Milan for a good five years in a variety of c-suite roles including CFO and chief strategy officer and he joined in fact it was more than five years um and then he um was at miami fc until may 2024 when he um jumped aboard the wrexham train anyway shall we bring michael williamson on let's bring him in michael williamson joins us well still partying michael what's the what's the mood what's the what's the feeling you don't look bleary-eyed michael you look fresh as a daisy actually we're talking on tuesday lunchtime after a saturday evening promotion party indeed my voice is uh i think finally returning um i lost that for a couple days uh i you know obviously we we celebrated quite a bit um in the evening but but i i didn't make it too late of a night because i went down to london for the efl awards uh sunday evening so that was another long evening and then came back yesterday.

10:27And so, yeah, had my first good sleep last night, thankfully. Yeah. Maybe take a week off the sauce, Michael. That might be good to dry you out a little bit. Tell us about this. Obviously, whenever anything happens to Wrexham, there's an inordinate amount of coverage, obviously, because of the fantastic Wrexham story. So, you know, League One club gets promoted. It's a much bigger deal when that League One club in question is Wrexham. And so many of our listeners and many more besides will have seen the pictures coming out from that amazing day on Saturday. Give us a, I mean, if you dare to recall it, give us a sort of blow by blow account of how the day played out for you from your perspective.

11:15Sure. Now it's, you know, listen, what's amazing about this is it's not just a League One club that's been promoted to championship. It's the fact that it's back to back to back three consecutive years in a row. And that is history. It's never been done before in the English football system. So it's quite remarkable. And I think that underpinned kind of the stress and anxiety of leading up to this point. Because I think we started off the season thinking, from my perspective, my expectations were, let's get into a playoff spot and see what can happen. And then suddenly you turn the half-away period of the league and you realize that you're sitting in a very good position and how do you go for it?

11:54But then that adds the more stress and pressure. But to arrive there was amazing. I mean, after the Wickham result and seeing that earlier in the day, and credit to Leighton Orient for really going after that and getting that result, I became very calm and confident. I spoke to the players. They were just waiting for the whistle to blow so they can start the match. From their perspective, you know, they knew that there was nothing going to stop them, that it was in our hands and we're on a win at all costs. And so I was very calm, met with a fan at one point before the match. And he said, yeah, I'm so nervous.

12:32I feel not to my stomach. You know, what do you what do you think? You know, are you nervous? Are you stressed? How are you feeling? And I just said, no, I'm relaxed. I said, we're going to do whatever it takes. So, you know, there's an excitement vibe after we all watched the match in the Betty Buzz suite for the Wickham match and then all went down afterwards. And Ryan decided to go into the fan zone of the turf. And and he was quite quite an energetic environment there, even though we hadn't played our match yet. But he he served me a beer, which I told him had too much foam in it. So, yeah, I still drank it.

13:09But listen, it was one hell of a performance by the lads in an energetic stadium that the fans did. And when it finally happened, you know, I had a moment of tears just absorbing the moment and having the stress, you know, and the overwhelming feeling of exhaustion. And then ultimately went down to the pitch and had the dunk that was heard around the world, the Gatorade dunk heard around the world, which Rob and Ryan dunking me with a bunch of red Gatorade. apparently is very interesting to people. I've got over 15 million views on Instagram and over 6 million on TikTok. So quite, quite remarkable.

13:47And then came all the messages and everyone from everyone else, obviously, after that a lot of excitement. And it's just been honestly a whirlwind of a period. And, you know, even this, you know, I walked my daughter into school and, and her, you know, her teachers there are all clapping and congratulating. And on my way out, I was walking down the street and ran into the CEO of football for FSG, spent 15 minutes talking about our promotion to championship and what that meant. And then I realized, oh, wait, I need to actually congratulate him, too. I forgot that Liverpool actually, you know, closed this weekend as well and with their with their championship of the league.

14:28And so it was kind of funny because, uh, you know, it was, yeah, it's just been one of those, one of those, uh, one of those weekends and it just, it hasn't stopped it. From a business organization point of view, Michael, what, what happens now? What happens when a club gets promoted? What happens when, when Wrexham gets promoted specifically? Am I allowed to swear on this or? Yeah, sure thing. It's the oh shit moment, I think for most clubs and probably for us as well. Right. Um, I think we've been here before as a club and getting promoted. I think the jump from League One to championship is a significant one.

15:08And that's probably what we're really focusing on now. I mean, we take a little bit of a breather, pat ourselves on the back for a moment, but that's very short-lived. And we've got to turn around, and we've come a long way in the last 10 months, so I feel pretty confident that with some of the things we've done off the pitch as well as on the pitch that we put ourselves in a position to consolidate and solidify our position within championship. But we still have a lot to do. We've already looked at some different models so that we understood what happened if we did get promoted. So it's not a surprise as to what our strategies could be.

15:45But we need to continue to invest off the pitch. We need to invest in the cop. We're going to be down to 10 ,500 seats next year playing in championship. quite remarkable you know just just to think about that size of a venue for a club like Wrexham that that's going in the championship but we have to take that step back before we take a step forward we need to invest in some of the training facilities now that we're in championship I mean that's going to become even more critical than it already is from recruitment of players and and you know development of talents and we've invested in the academy me, but that's only started recently as well.

16:21So it's about developing all these areas and making sure that when we do get promoted again, which if it happens back to back to back to back, that would be something that would be remarkable. But at the same time, it would be a real challenge because I don't want to go up to Premier League and not have the foundations built for us to be able to stay there. You've seen the last two years, the clubs went up, came back down. And some like Luton are struggling, you know, even on, you know, on that next level and championship after being promoted last year. And so, or being up in Premier League last year.

16:58So it's something that I'm very in tune with that I want to make sure when we get there that we can stay there. We have the foundations in place to stay in championship. It's just a question of what do we need to do to build off of that without losing momentum. That's the biggest challenge. What's made this club successful um is you know the community the excitement the fans the storytelling of course but it's also been the momentum that's been built um and and that that continuity and consistency in and around that momentum and that excitement and that's resulted in the back to back to back so how do we continue our growth but understand that we you know we don't want to lose momentum either yeah and i guess the back to back to back that the three-peat and what's going up again is that a quadration i don't know but it's never been it's never a word that's never been needed yeah um i guess quite a lot of what so just to interrupt but we had you know the three p was something that we're thinking about from retail standpoint but we're like well that's more of a u.s american saying so i don't think that would really work here to say three p so we went with the back to back to back but i do think quadration is something you should consider next year we'll work on that just in just in terms of that i guess i guess something that must be sort of foremost in your mind is you've got all of this momentum.

18:14You have gone back to back to back. There are likely to be expectations of another one, or at least hopes of another one. And from your perspective, I guess you're going to be preaching, you know, conservatism, let's consolidate. We are not going up again. It would be extraordinary if we go up again. It's sort of setting expectations at every level, right? Yeah, absolutely. From the board to obviously, you know, keeping the staff engaged and excited about the success we've had and making sure that we understand what defines success going forward. And then ultimately, from a fan standpoint, I mean, our fans have had three years of a lot of winning.

18:57And so going forward, there will be some losses along the way, and it's going to be more challenging. But I do have confidence that that we have the type of environment in and around the dressing room that is going to allow us to have success on the pitch. You know, our manager, Phil, is really a, you know, a person manager more than anything else. And, you know, obviously has great success, but he really understands his players and even the new ones that come in. And you saw that because there's a lot of times when you can make changes in the January market and they end up being disastrous, right?

19:32Because that's a big risk. You're bringing somebody into the mix or a group of people into a mix that is already a tight knit group. But he's a master at being able to get those individuals to work collectively and then ultimately individually as well. And so I think it's going to be, you know, from an expectation standpoint, I think we need to take a little bit of a breath, make sure that we get consolidation. But here again, you know, if we get into a playoff spot, But with this group and with the special factors that we have, it seems like, in and around, anything could happen. And that's where the hope comes into play, right?

20:13But championship is hard. You have three teams coming down with parachute payments. Luton's going to stay in there with their second year of parachute payment. But it'll be interesting because I also think that with Leeds going up and Burnley going up and if Sheffield is able to get up there too, you know there are three you know parachute clubs that are going back into premier league right so suddenly you're only looking at you know three clubs coming down plus luton that are on parachute payments could be an interesting you're talking yourself into it yeah talking yourself into it one can dream one can one can train you you touched on it earlier but um and you were with us a few weeks ago at our leaders meet innovation event talking about this to um a select group of the industry, but maybe just for people listening who will have seen the plans for the COP and the development work that's going on there.

21:06Phil, is in a little bit on timelines, progress, and what the plan and the ambition is for that. Sure, sure. So we actually had a temporary COP with about 3 ,000 seats that allowed us to arrive around 13 ,500 in the stadium. And we removed 500 of those a couple weeks ago and uh you know that was not knowing whether we're going to be in playoffs or not we wanted to try to retain as many seats as possible throughout that process but we also needed access to the pitch because literally after our last match and starting next week after we have a little bit of fan celebration we're going to um uh you know have to tear up the pitch and replace the pitch and so we need to be able to get uh the the materials and the tractors and everything else in place as quickly as possible.

21:52So the first process that we have is the summer works, which are really TV gantries. The dugouts are moving and focusing on putting in a stitch pitch with underground heating and proper drainage so that we have that in place for next season and have the grow in time. Then starting in probably fall, we'll start the actual ground works for the cop itself. And it'll take a while. So, you know, our goal is to start to open up seats as quickly as possible because taking away those 3 ,000 seats means we'll be down to 10 ,500. So the sooner we can start to open up parts of the cop and Fulham's interesting because it's been a project that's been going on for a while.

22:33They're still working on it, but they actually open up sections of it for the match on match days and they close it down to continue the works. You know, we might find ourselves in a situation like that, or we might say, you know what, We'll just keep it closed for an extra month or two and get it all done. We'll have to evaluate that. But we're trying to get it as quickly as possible for that 26-27 season so that we can have fans in there and hopefully get we have approval for 5 ,500. We're looking to submit a planning application to increase that by 2 ,000 or more or less. So we arrived at 7 ,500, which will put the entire stadium around 18 ,000 when it's finally complete, which is, I think, the right number for now.

23:11but a lot of work still going into it you know behind the scenes so what we're doing is we're doing stage three REBA designs we're also went out with a survey last week to all previous ticket buyers so season ticket holders as well as individual ticket buyers asking for input generally speaking about you know their experiences but also to help understand what are the amenities, what's the experiences that we want to put into the cup. So we have the design of the facade. We know the size of the seats, but what are we doing within the footprint and what are we actually providing from an experience standpoint at different tiers, at all levels.

23:54So from a GA ticket all the way up to a suite box holder, understanding what is important to them is what we're trying to collect now so that we can design the interiors and the elements of what is you know provided on a match day as well as a non-match day experience to get that locked down before we start we start building so you've got this tremendous improvement going on on the pitch obviously these three back-to-back promotions you've got real physical rebuilding work going on in the ground you've also got significant evolution I would say at executive level. You yourself, Michael, I think you're coming up to precisely a year in the role.

24:38Yes, May 15th. Wow. May 15th. Yeah. Premature congratulations on that. I wonder whether you could, and anyone who's watched the Wrexham documentary, we're kind of a year behind on who's around the club. I wonder whether you could quickly fill us in on who is in the key executive positions now. Obviously, you've got Rob Faulkner with you as well, very experienced, seasoned European football exec. So who's doing what now? And I guess maybe if you could talk a little bit about the process that led you to the club. I mean, your due diligence, was that just watching the docs, right? More or less. More or less.

25:19I mean, I heard about Rex, you know. But I had not actually seen the documentary until after I signed an NBA and a search firm that was doing the search. said, I think we have the perfect match for you for a position. And I still have two years under my contract with my prior employer, but I had a buyout clause. So I said, okay, yeah, I'll take the call. I'm interested in knowing what's going on. And next thing I know, started watching the documentary, went through seven interviews, you know, final ones were Rob and Ryan. And when I spoke to them, I knew this was the thing I wanted to be involved in.

25:54So it didn't take much convincing after that, to be honest. and uh no quite quite quite incredible and and so listen to be very honest it was um probably a risk for rob and ryan to bring me in um you know to to have obviously i have strong european football uh knowledge have north american sports knowledge but to bring in an american into rexham what that was you know a community football organization right yeah um they wanted to obviously you know It was basically a National League a few years ago and had half a dozen employees basically around the grounds. And no one would have expected three years later to be where it is today.

26:37And so they understood that they needed to grow and develop in order for this to be sustainable, but also to continue to move up the ladder. and again you know to decide to bring in an American into into the you know UK into North Wales specifically into this project which is so deeply rooted in the community was a huge risk hopefully one that they they think paid off right so you know one of the things I've done is is really focused on hiring so we needed you know to bring people in to support the people that were on the ground, but bring people in that knew what great is and know what good is, but are also caring and rooted in kindness.

27:21You know, I didn't want to bring any, excuse my language, assholes into the mix because that just wouldn't work. And so I really focused on hiring the right people, but the right people, not just because of their experience, but because of the way they approach the work that they do. And that's not always easy. There's risk also when I bring in people that they might not be the right fit. But fortunately, we've gotten the right. And we've gone from 40 permanent employees when I joined to we're at 94 permanent employees now and still growing. That's what's remarkable. But we brought in a special projects and strategy director to run a lot of these infrastructure projects and strategies that we have going on.

28:04A guy named Aidan Miller, who comes from Everton, he was working on the Everton dating project that just wrapped up. You know, I have a chief of staff that was formerly at Liverpool. You mentioned Rob Faulkner, who was at ECA, European Club Association. He was with me at Inter, was at UEFA before that. A finance director, you know, a head of licensing and retail that was with Puma, Adidas, and also MLS, right? So somebody, again, who understands a global brand, but also is very deeply rooted in grassroots community football. head of legal, head of HR that was the head of HR at Burnley. So again, finding people that can help us on this journey, but also really understand what makes this special.

28:53And what makes Wrexham special is we are a community football organization still. We are still a community football club. And the more we're able to stay rooted in that, the more our success will continue. A good note, Michael, on which to finish. Well, I just wondered whether Michael has got three more minutes to do the quick fire topical round. Oh, what's that? Michael, have you got three minutes? Can you give us three minutes into your next meeting? Yes. There we go. Okay. Let's do it. Let's do it. What's worth knowing this week? Should we start with Michael? Because you might have to drop off to another meeting in a minute now.

29:28Michael, aside from the glorious Wrexham story, what is worth knowing this week? Besides the fact that the Gatorade dunking got 15 million views on Instagram, which I'm still shocked by. That makes you an influencer now, by the way. That's right. It's quite impressive. But no, besides that, I think the story that I'm kind of following just because it's relevant is obviously the football regulator. and where that's going and who they're going to be bringing in. And, you know, I've been trying to be supportive of the EFL's position on this along the way, obviously. But at the same time, you know, kind of keeping an arm's length out of it because I just, again, I want to understand, you know, the direction it's heading.

30:18There's a lot of positives out of it, but I also want to make sure that as the bill is sort of implemented, if and when it's implemented, is that to make sure that unintended consequences don't occur. Right. And that's the challenge, because what's needed today might not be the same as what's needed four years from now and five years from now. So being able to have the flexibility and adaptability to modify that, to apply in future circumstances is really critical. so i'm just following that to see how that ends up and where that goes um yeah that's my hot topic and reporting around that over the weekend is that david cogan um is the likely front runner for that job david cogan long time media rights um executive sold premier league rights for many many years uh runs his own women's sports uh rights agency now as well um david what's worth knowing on your end.