When TV star Rob McElhenny took a gamble on the minnow Welsh football team Wrexham AFC in 2020 with fellow actor Ryan Reynolds, the self-confessed football novice wanted to look the part. What better way than to find a vintage 1970s replica jersey donning the “Wrexham Lager” sponsor?
McElhenney first set about a futile search of the Racehorse Grounds for any leftovers, but he was left empty-handed.
He asked Wrexham AFC’s director Shaun Harvey: “‘Why would they just either throw them out or give them to family and friends? Aren’t they valuable?’
“And he said, no, they weren’t valuable. They actually represented unsold merchandise at a certain time, which was not great for the club, in fact, it was unsustainable,” McElhenney told Fortune.
The Wrexham co-owner is likely cursing those decisions now. His investment in Wrexham AFC and an Emmy award-winning documentary series on the club means he would have likely been sitting on a fresh goldmine of worn-out jerseys if they had stuck around.
Instead, McElhenney found his dream jersey online through U.K. retailer Classic Football Shirts.
Little did he know at the time, but that purchase—one of “a bunch” of old Wrexham shirts the “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” co-creator would buy in the proceeding years—would lead to a more sizeable investment in the company.
McElhenney was announced in September as a strategic investor of Classic Football Shirts, a Manchester-founded company reselling old jerseys. His More Better Ventures group was named a strategic backer alongside former USWNT player Alex Morgan through her Trybe Ventures, and Wasserman Ventures.
Vintage football shirts have become a growth market in recent years, piercing through the traditional demographic of football fans and into the broader zeitgeist as a fashion statement. It’s something that McElhenney noticed when he tried on a match-worn Diego Maradona top from his time at Italian club Napoli.
“The kit itself is so beautiful and so well made,” McElhenney told Fortune. “Back in the day, they were making these almost hand-knit sweaters that these guys would be wearing.
“Depending on the fit, it’s not just an expression of fandom, it’s also a bit of a fashion statement.”
More importantly, classic jerseys have become prized possessions in the burgeoning alternative investment market. After missing out on his own haul of classic Wrexham jerseys, McElhenney isn’t ready to let that chance slip him by again.
The Wrexham takeover is complete!#WxmAFC pic.twitter.com/cpM0TbsynF
— Classic Football Shirts (@classicshirts) November 16, 2020
McElhenney’s latest investment
A cursory glance over Classic Football Shirts’ website shows the most expensive shirts on sale are invariably old Barcelona replica jerseys donning Lionel Messi’s name on the back. Jerseys bearing Messi’s original number 19 routinely sell for hundreds of pounds.
This reporter, who has a kid-size 2005 “Messi 19” jersey lingering somewhere in his childhood wardrobe, alongside an old Wayne Rooney Manchester United top from the same year and a replica of Ronaldo’s 2002 World Cup-winning Brazil shirt, asked Classic Football Shirts CEO and co-founder Doug Bierton whether they would be prized assets on his platform.
“They’re classics we’ll get through the door day in, day out,” Bierton says of the selection, shattering this reporter’s dream of a quick payday. Because they’re kid-size, he adds, their resale value is adversely affected.
Rather, there is a fine art to identifying a football jersey that is likely to grow in value, with buyers taking into account design, the success of the team wearing that shirt, the name of the player on the back, and any cult backstory that could be lingering in the team’s archives.
Many just need one of these qualities, Bierton says, citing the Nigeria 2018 World Cup kit. Nigeria didn’t make it out of the group phase of that tournament, but it flies off online shelves because it’s regarded as innovative.
A Goldilocks shirt, Bierton says, would be a Netherlands replica jersey from the 1988 European Football Championship. The zagged orange design is regarded as iconic in fashion circles and represents the Netherlands’ only major championship victory in a tournament that featured historic Dutch moments, including Marco Van Basten’s looping volley in the final against the Soviet Union. Those can sell for over £1,000.
“All shirts are kind of on that journey. They all start life at 50 or 60 quid, and then it’s how long it takes them to get there; that is what it’s all about,” Bierton says.
Limited edition kits, including Italian side Juventus’s collaboration with Alis, are good bets for investible jerseys from more recent seasons.
The business of Classic Football Shirts
Classic Football Shirts grew revenues by more than 25% to £24.4 million in 2023 and made a profit of £4.5 million. Historically, Bierton and his co-founder Matthew Dale have reinvested their profits into buying more shirts.
Now, the company is planning for expansion in the U.S.—its fastest-growing market—by launching stores in New York, L.A., and Miami ahead of the 2026 World Cup. That’s where McElhenney and his fellow investors come in.
Through his More Better Ventures, McElhenney has spun his ownership of Wrexham into a critically acclaimed series, Welcome to Wrexham, which streams on Disney+. McElhenney was particularly captivated by the similar story-telling potential of vintage tops.
“It’s not just a piece of merchandise or a consumable good or a consumer product. It is a storytelling device,” McElhenney says.
“It’s something that when you see it, you get goosebumps, you feel something, you have an emotional relationship to that product. Not because of the thread, not because of the process of making it. It’s simply because of what that kit represents to you emotionally, it brings you back to a place in time that was special to you, and so that will always speak to you.”
Jerseys, in particular, hold a special place in McElhenney’s heart. Throughout the interview, he also name-checked the clothing from his other sporting love affair, the Philadelphia Eagles NFL franchise.
The actor says the only operational control he and Reynolds have over their club is in the design of Wrexham’s football kits. The pair designed Wrexham’s alternative kit for this season based on inspiration from Manchester United’s baggy 1990s top after watching the “Beckham” Netflix documentary.
Beyond football shirts
Investments like wine, sneakers, and jewelry are gaining traction among Gen Z as an alternative to traditional stocks and bonds, Bank of America says. Sneakers in particular have developed their own lucrative trading market amid a sea of limited edition drops championed by musicians and social media personalities.
Indeed, McElhenney told Fortune that his boldest fashion statement was his regular donning of Air Jordan sneakers, which his family lacked the discretionary income to buy for him when he was growing up.
Classic Football Shirts’ financial success in recent years would suggest vintage tops could follow sneakers as a major alternative investment.
Bierton says buyers who hang onto jerseys for 10 years are likely to have an asset that’s worth a lot more than when it was new, something he wishes he was able to do with his company.
“If we’d kept every shirt that we ever had, they’d be worth a lot more now than they were back then, but the business is selling shirts.”
Editor’s note: A version of this story first appeared on Fortune.com on October 9, 2024.
