WXM US Tour: Why the sheep was nobody singing? OK, I shouldn’t say that nobody was singing, that’s not a fair or accurate statement. I was only able to attend the game in San Diego, but I can say that there were several hundred Wrexham fans there that knew the songs and we were in fact singing. But why several hundred when there were thousands of Wrexham fans?
Before the gates opened for the game in San Diego, we spent a couple of hours in the fan zone at the Turf getting to meet lots of other fans. Based on our conversations and getting to know a lot of these people, most of them seemed to be fans of the documentary, Welcome to Wrexham. The vast majority of people that we spoke with only watched the documentary, they did not immediately start following the club on social media once the show ended and they didn’t subscribe to NationalLeagueTV and watch the 22/23 season.
The other thing could be intimidation… Sitting next to a fan from an opposing club or in our case, being surrounded by a dozen drunk fans from the opposing club (at a game that suddenly felt unfriendly after Mullin was injured) can be a bit intimidating. My wife and I have witnessed enough fights break out at sporting events over the years to know, we don't want to be involved in that. Regardless, we still jumped in and sang every time we heard a chant going and we jumped out of our seats chanting WREXHAM after every goal.
Knowing all this, it makes sense to me why there wouldn’t be a lot of people singing the chants, they just don’t know them, they aren't in the documentary. These supporters have not been exposed to the chants in the same way some of us “super fans” have been, by watching matches. Admittedly, it was extremely hard at first, trying to figure out how to watch matches in the US. I probably never would have figured it out if I wasn’t as active on social media and following the club.
This is where I feel like the documentary could be a lot more help to the club by encouraging people to follow Wrexham AFC on social media and teaching people where to go to watch the matches live. In the US, the only way to watch games live is to stream them from a website. This creates a challenge because most people want to watch games on their TV and a lot of people don’t know how (or aren’t able) to stream websites on their TV. If the owners can figure out a way to educate people on how to overcome this obstacle, the number of supporters and subscribers could increase significantly.
With all that being said, the one thing everyone that I spoke with had a common, they all wanted to start watching the matches live on TV. That is one area (along with many others) that I think the tour was very successful, supporters that have only seen the show have now seen a live match and they want to go home to watch more live matches. This is how it starts, get US fans to watch a Wrexham live, hear the chants and wonder, “what the sheep are they singing”?
Opmerkingen