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One of the most successful celebrity team-ups in recent years was Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenny’s purchase of the Wrexham AFC soccer team in 2020, one of the oldest clubs in Wales.
“In reality, it’s still completely insane,” Reynolds told BI back in June when reflecting on buying Wrexham with one of his closest friends, McElhenny.
Still, it’s an insane move that has brought both men heightened notoriety and huge payoffs since buying the team for $2.5 million. The club suddenly has global visibility as it rises up the ranks of the English football league and has netted income-generating partnerships with Gatorade, TikTok, United Airlines, Vista Print, and computer giant HP. Reynolds and McElhenny also created the popular FX docuseries “Welcome to Wrexham,” which has won multiple Emmys.
Though the club’s popularity is obvious, Reynolds and McElhenny haven’t seen a financial reward — yet. In March, it was revealed that the team’s losses totaled $6.4 million and that the team owes its star owners over $11 million.
Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes, and Will Arnett also know the power of friendship and have made it a sellable commodity thanks to their podcast “SmartLess.” After growing its popularity for four years, SiriusXM acquired the podcast from Amazon for $100 million.
And “Breaking Bad” stars Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have crafted an award-winning mezcal brand, Dos Hombres, while also bettering the lives of those back in Mexico who make the juice. The two didn’t just want to be the face of a brand; instead, they trekked through the jungles of Mexico in 2016 to ensure they were delivering an authentic and differentiated product.
Dos Hombres merchandise sales also go to the San Luis del Rio village, which makes the mezcal. So far, that revenue has provided a water-filtration system, a paved road, and a medical facility that’s still under construction.
“We didn’t have to do this,” Cranston told BI late last year. “The only reason to do it is if we were both passionate about it. And that’s what we found.”
Whether it be a passion project, doing something seemingly nuts with a friend by their side, or hitting the jackpot and cashing in on the venture, celebrity friend team-ups are working at the moment.
But there is an ultimate friend to have in this business: Taylor Swift.
The “Taylor Bump” is real
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Sometimes, even star power can’t help a venture succeed.
Jill Avery, senior lecturer at Harvard Business School, told BI that a failed partnership is often due to “negative buzz, particularly if consumers can’t make sense of the collaboration.”
One of the most memorable celebrity team-up failures was the mid-1990s LA restaurant called Dive!, owned by Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg.
Built to look like diners were inside a neon yellow submarine, every 45 minutes, sirens would blare, and the windows would black out to make it seem like the restaurant was about to submerge. The gimmick got old quickly with Dive! lasting only five years before closing its doors in 1999.
More recently, couple Kristen Bell and Dax Shephard’s baby products company Hello Bello, founded in 2019, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in 2023, citing high shipping and production costs for its failure. (Hildred Capital bought the company out of bankruptcy months later.)
Despite those risks and a few flops from celebrity team-ups, Hollywood friends are definitely finding it more beneficial to partner on a business than go it alone.