Ryan Reynolds is turning his attention from football to sailing as he seeks to build on the international profile he helped create around Wrexham AFC through his investment in the Australian SailGP team.
Reynolds and fellow actor Hugh Jackman became co-owners of the Australian team in 2025, alongside Olympic gold medallist and team driver Tom Slingsby. The team was subsequently rebranded as the Bonds Flying Roos.
The investment has also expanded beyond ownership. Reynolds’ company, Maximum Effort, has reached an agreement with Disney to produce a behind-the-scenes documentary focused on the SailGP team, creating a similar entertainment and sporting connection to the model that helped raise Wrexham’s international profile.
Slingsby, who leads the Australian team, sees the involvement of Reynolds and Jackman as an opportunity to bring sailing to audiences that may not traditionally follow the sport. Their global entertainment profiles could help the team attract attention outside the established sailing community.
The Australian team enters the 2026 season with an established competitive record. It won three of the first four SailGP championships and remains one of the league’s most recognisable teams.
Its commercial ambitions have also grown. The team has attracted major sponsors and is generating about $10 million in annual revenue, with Slingsby putting its current value at roughly $100 million as it moves towards profitability.
SailGP itself is expanding as it attempts to establish sailing as a more commercially attractive global sport. The 2026 championship features 13 national teams, while the league has indicated plans to eventually expand its international footprint further.
The Australian team’s latest ownership structure reflects a broader trend in global sport, where celebrities, entrepreneurs and investors are increasingly taking stakes in teams and using entertainment, social media and documentary content to build international fan bases.
For Reynolds, the strategy is familiar. His involvement in Wrexham alongside Rob McElhenney turned the Welsh football club into a global entertainment property, helped by the documentary series Welcome to Wrexham. The SailGP venture offers a different sporting platform but follows a similar commercial approach of combining ownership, storytelling and entertainment.
The challenge will be translating that formula into sailing, a sport with a smaller mainstream audience than football. Slingsby believes the combination of competitive success, celebrity ownership, sponsorship and media exposure can help the Australian team reach a much wider audience.
The Bonds Flying Roos are currently leading the 2026 SailGP season ahead of the next stages of the championship, giving the team a strong sporting platform as Reynolds and his partners attempt to expand its commercial and cultural reach.
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