Welcome to Wrexham Season 5 Launches on FX and Hulu: Reynolds and McElhenney's Club Takes on the Championship for the First Time Since 1982
Siften AI Desk·May 15, 2026·3 min read·AI-generated
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Wrexham Reds
news · May 10, 2026
Welcome to Wrexham Season 5: Everything We Know So Far
“The fifth season will follow Wrexham AFC's first season in the Championship, the highest level the 162-year-old club has competed at since 1982. The women's side goes in search of its first-ever Welsh League title.”
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Championship debut
Wrexham's first season at Championship level — the highest since 1982 — is the heart of Season 5
Women's title run
Wrexham AFC Women are chasing their first-ever Welsh Women's Premier League title in a parallel storyline
Two-episode launch
Season 5 premiered 14 May on FX, Hulu, and Disney+ with back-to-back episodes
Welcome to Wrexham returned for its fifth season on Thursday, 14 May 2026, premiering with two back-to-back episodes on FX and Hulu in the United States and on Disney+ in the UK.13 The new season follows Wrexham AFC's historic first campaign in the EFL Championship — the second tier of English football — the highest level the 162-year-old club has competed at since 1982, and a milestone that marks the culmination of the extraordinary transformation co-owners Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney have overseen since buying the club in 2020.14
What happened to get here
Wrexham's journey from the National League — the fifth tier of the English football pyramid — to the Championship in the space of three seasons under Reynolds and McElhenney has been one of the most widely reported sports stories of recent years.25 The club won the National League title and gained promotion in 2023, followed by back-to-back promotions through League Two and League One that brought them to the Championship ahead of the 2025-26 season.48 Season 5 of the documentary series covers that Championship debut, following the players, staff, community, and owners through the challenges and pressures of competing at a level far above where the club was when the cameras first arrived.1
The Championship is a significantly more demanding environment than anything Wrexham has faced in the documentary's first four series. The division sits one step below the Premier League, features 24 clubs competing in a 46-game season, and is widely regarded as one of the most gruelling second divisions in world football due to its intensity, quality, and the pressure of promotion and relegation consequences.37
The women's team storyline
The fifth series adds a parallel narrative strand that has been developing quietly in previous seasons. Wrexham AFC Women are competing for their first-ever Welsh Women's Premier League title, giving the documentary a dual championship storyline that runs alongside the men's campaign.14 The women's team has benefited from the wider investment and profile that Reynolds and McElhenney's ownership has brought to the club, and their title push gives the series a second major narrative thread with its own emotional stakes.5
Reynolds and McElhenney
The documentary has always been as much about its owners as the football club, and the dynamic between Ryan Reynolds — the Canadian actor best known for the Deadpool and Free Guy films — and Rob McElhenney, the creator and star of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, has been central to its appeal.26 Their combination of genuine enthusiasm, commercial acumen, and well-timed self-deprecating humour has made the show accessible to audiences with no prior interest in lower-league football and earned it substantial critical acclaim across its first four seasons.68
Season 5 will test that dynamic in new ways. Managing a Championship club involves transfers, contracts, and financial pressures that operate at a different scale to League Two or the National League, and the series is expected to explore how Reynolds and McElhenney navigate co-ownership decisions at a level of investment and public scrutiny significantly higher than anything covered in previous series.47
Release schedule
Following the two-episode premiere, Welcome to Wrexham Season 5 will release one new episode per week every Thursday on FX and Hulu in the US and on Disney+ internationally, running through to 25 June 2026.35 The eight-episode run covers the arc of what promises to be the most consequential season in the club's recent history.
Key topics covered
Television
Sport
Documentary
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