Both sport and media have been ascribed the power to affect human behavior. With streaming platforms creating a worldwide audience for sport docuseries, these two forces might combine to create wide-ranging effects. How this plays out on a large scale, however, has not been studied extensively. We contribute to this growing area of inquiry by investigating the social and economic impact of “Welcome to Wrexham”, a popular sport docuseries chronicling the purchase of Welsh soccer club Wrexham A.F.C. by Hollywood actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney. Using causal impact modeling, we find a significant increase in employment and per capita GDP in the city, alongside mental health benefits. As such, our results establish the real-world implications of a “Netflix Effect” in the realm of sport, exemplifying how sport media cannot only grow the following of clubs and athletes, but also affect society.
Boehmer et al. (Fri,) studied this question.