After Ryan Reynolds and Always Sunny‘s Rob McElhenney‘s high-profile purchase of the football team Wrexham AFC, they got the need for speed, and Michael B. Jordan is along for the ride.
The trio, along with Ryan’s Maximum Effort Investments, Otro Capital, RedBird Capital Partners, just bought a 24% stake in Alpine Racing Ltd., a fifth-ranked Formula One racing team.
The CEO of the racing team, Laurent Rossi, called the investors, who shelled out roughly $982 million in the play, “international players with [a] strong track record in the sports industry, [who] will bring their recognized expertise to boost our media and marketing strategy, essential to support our sporting performance over the long term.”
For his part, James Toney, co-founder of Maximum Effort Investments said in the announcement, “We believe there is tremendous untapped potential in Alpine Racing. We are eager to help shine a light on this incredible team…and look forward to diving in with them, as well as our co-investors Michael B. Jordan and Rob McElhenney.”
No doubt Alpine Racing is looking for a similar change of fortune than the one enjoyed by Wrexham after Reynolds and McElhenney bought the beloved underdog Welsh footy team in 2020. Their trials and tribulations were captured in the FX docuseries Welcome to Wrexham.
In April of 2023, the soccer club clinched the National League title and earned a slot back into the Football League for the first time in 15 years with a 3-1 victory over rivals Boreham Wood.
The actors’/co-chairs’ emotional reaction to it — incidentally captured on social media by their friend Paul Rudd — went viral.
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