Lessons from Lasso: what happens when sport brands break the fourth wall

Football clubs are no longer defined solely by what happens on the pitch. Increasingly, their value lies in the strength of their brand, their intellectual property and their ability to generate revenue through licensing, merchandising, sponsorship and media partnerships. This applies whether the club is real or fictional. Using AFC Richmond from Ted Lasso and the remarkable rise of Wrexham AFC as examples, this article explores how sports brands are evolving into valuable commercial assets and why intellectual property plays a central role in that transformation.

In this article we’ll be looking at:

• How a fictional football club became a commercially valuable brand
• What Wrexham’s transformation reveals about the growing overlap between sport, entertainment and commerce
• Why protecting brand assets is increasingly important for sports organisations and rights holders

AFC Richmond (Richmond) is a football club founded in 1897 that plays its home games at the Dogtrack on Nelson Road. Their jersey is easily purchased online alongside the usual line of merchandise we have come to expect from a mainstream sports team. Richmond is a household name, with many people able to name members of the management team and players in the first-team line-up. In order to protect this goodwill, there are a number of registered trademarks covering the club’s name, crest, and even the manager’s name. All no doubt registered with a view to maximising the value of the brand for lucrative commercial deals and to prevent unauthorised use by third parties. All of this sounds fairly par for the course when protecting a leading sports organisation and largely aligns with the strategies we support our clients in the sports sector with. There is however one important distinction which sets Richmond apart, namely that the club, its crest, its manager, its ground and the players are all a work of fiction.

Those familiar with the popular Ted Lasso television series may well have anticipated the conclusion to the opening of this article. However, for those unfamiliar, it would be reasonable to say that this may have come somewhat as a surprise.

Richmond is an excellent example of a growing trend of brands who started life as a work of fiction before breaking out into the real world. From an IP law perspective, fictional football clubs present a particularly interesting challenge. Although Richmond does not exist as a competing football club, it nevertheless functions as a commercial brand in much the same way as a club in the real world. The club’s name, crest, colours, kit designs and associated branding have all acquired significant goodwill and as such require protection to both prevent them from being misused, but also to allow them to be commercially exploited. Richmond has enjoyed “real world” brand partnerships with Nike, EA Sports and even Nando’s. All of which require registered trade marks and brand assets as the basis for the commercial arrangements.

The commercial reality is that a fictional football club can quickly become a real-world business asset.

But what happens when we reverse the situation? Wrexham AFC (Wrexham) is the third-oldest professional football team in the world, a household name that now competes in the second tier of English football. However, rewind just over six years ago, and this was an entirely different story. In early 2020, Wrexham was a club in crisis, playing in the fifth division of English football following a challenging period. This all changed in late 2020 as the club was purchased by American actor Rob McElhenney and Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds. What followed was a significant investment into Wrexham by the pair, resulting in a complete transformation of the club’s fortunes both on and off the pitch.

Bringing the power of Hollywood to bear, Wrexham went from a lower league Welsh football team to a household sports brand. An immensely popular docuseries entitled “Welcome to Wrexham” was produced and released to huge critical acclaim. The club leveraged that success to launch themselves as a major brand. In the digital world, the team was added to FIFA 22 in a deal much like Richmond. In the physical world, the sale of club merchandise and jerseys exploded, again, much like Richmond. All of this activity was backed by a wave of trade mark filings, covering the club’s principle brand assets and no doubt a robust brand management strategy. The club’s name, crest and associated branding are now no longer just indicators of sporting identity, they are valuable commercial assets capable of generating substantial revenue through merchandising, sponsorship, licensing and media partnerships.

Consequently, the distinction between fiction and reality has therefore become increasingly blurred. Modern football clubs, whether fictional or real, operate within an increasingly interconnected ecosystem of sport, entertainment and commerce. Intellectual property is no longer a secondary consideration and is now the principal mechanism through which reputation is protected and commercial value is realised.

For rights holders, the success of both AFC Richmond and Wrexham demonstrates that a football badge can be far more than a symbol of sporting allegiance, it can become the cornerstone of a globally recognised and highly valuable brand.

Helping sports organisations to identify, manage and protect their brand assets is what we do. If we can assist in any way, please don’t hesitate to reach out.