Forget Tom Brady and Ryan Reynolds, JJ Watt’s Burnley adventure proves that NFL legend truly gets it
JJ Watt may not be generating quite as many headlines as his fellow US names with their hands on Football League clubs.
But that suits Burnley down to the ground.
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“Who the f***ing hell are you?” screamed down at Tom Brady from the Wrexham supporters in attendance at St Andrew’s for Monday’s League One showdown with Birmingham City.
Dubbed the ‘Hollywood Derby’, Birmingham minority-owner – and NFL legend – Brady sat in the stands alongside Wrexham co-owner Rob McElhenney. And the pair, for some reason, were joined by David Beckham.
In his venture with fellow superstar actor Ryan Reynolds, McElhenney has built tremendous goodwill in Wales as Wrexham have earned back-to-back promotions.
Brady – still fresh to football ownership having bought his stake in Birmingham just over a year ago – was in good spirits ahead of watching his new team defeat their title-rivals.
League One record-signing Jay Stansfield scored twice as Brady earned bragging rights amongst the A-listers watching on and for many, the headlines were that, rather than the result.
After all, this is a new age of American involvement in British football, one of genuine excitement for the lower leagues, aided in no
small part by Wrexham’s relative pioneers.
Yet, if you travel roughly 125 miles north, you’ll find another – albeit slightly quieter – American star making his presence felt on a historic British club.
Founded in 1882, Burnley Football Club are two-time winners of the old First Division (most recently in 1960). The Clarets have been beleaguered more often than brilliant in the past few decades.
Overshadowed by its far more influential neighbor – Manchester – Burnley is one of the most deprived towns in England and certainly not a place that is used to stardom.
But in JJ Watt, they have their own – perfect – answer to Brady and Wrexham.
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A future NFL Hall of Famer, Watt starred for a decade as a defensive end for the Houston Texans before finishing his career with the Arizona Cardinals in 2022.
He wasn’t out of sport for long, taking on a completely different venture in 2023 when he and his wife, the former US international soccer star, Kealia Watt invested in a minority share of Burnley.
And while the financial input might only be a minority share, the emotional investment from the Watts has been anything but that.
“There’s not a single day in our household that Burnley is not spoken about, emailed about, called about,” JJ told ESPN in August last year.
“If you don’t know what’s important to these people, you can’t support them the right way. So we have a lot to learn. We’re not even close yet.
“What we can do is show that we do care. Show that we do want to learn about it, and show that when we are speaking about Burnley to the rest of the world, we’re speaking what they would want the world to know, not what we think they would want the world to know.”
In November of 2023, ahead of Burnley’s Premier League clash with West Ham, Watt was spotted in the town.
Not in the hospitality box or on TV. But fulfilling his word, surrounded by real people as he stepped in to pour pints at the iconic Royal Dyche pub (named after former Burnley manager Sean
Dyche) just around the corner from Turf Moor.
The stories of Watt’s genuine affection for his new team – and town -go on and on. In the United States, the image of Watt with his claret Burnley hat pulled down over his eyes had long become something of his trademark before Americans started asking where they could buy their own.
JJ started selling the hats himself, donating all the proceeds to a local food bank in Burnley.
This new age of American celebrity further down the English football pyramid is a phenomenon that is helping drive the growth of the game in the U.S. while aiding clubs in the UK – as seen by the impact at Wrexham over the past few years.
But Watt is somehow a little different, marked by his authenticity and unique understanding of the centre of his new venture: the humans of the town he is growing ever more attached to.
In simple terms, he gets it.
Growing up in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, Watt’s fire-fighter father helped instill the small-town values of hard-work into his three sons, all of whom went on to play in the NFL.
Watt’s career included surgeries on his back, knees, legs and more. If there’s one value he understands, it’s how to get back up after you hit the ground.
Perhaps it’s this which has connected the 3x Defensive Player of the Year with Burnley. Or it could just be who Watt is: enthusiastic, understanding, and caring.
Walter Payton Man of the Year Winner in 2017 for raising upwards of $40M to help in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey that decimated the Houston area, Watt has frequently displayed his desire to care about the people and places around him.
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And that’s what he’s doing at Burnley.
Earlier this week Birmingham CEO Garry Cook was asked whether he thought his team’s fixture with Wrexham should have been in the United States.
Perhaps speaking on behalf of majority owner Tom
Wagner – a resident of New York – Cook said: “Personally, I think that is a great idea. But I think the EFL wouldn’t see it that way.”
Watt, presumably watching on from home, took to Twitter/X to offer his thoughts on the idea: “The beauty of the English game is the history, the tradition, the passion.
“These clubs have been around long before any of us arrived and they’ll be around long after any of us are gone.
“Modernize some aspects that need it, sure. But let’s not mess with what makes it great.”
It’s no criticism of the rest of the Americans involved in clubs across the pond – celebrity or not – but Watt has fallen in love with everything to do with Burnley and everything to do with football in England.
He’s doing it the right way and he continues to prove that.
He gets it.
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