Live With Kelly and Mark hosts Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos purchased a professional sports team a few years ago. ESPN cameras followed them as they tried to make a winning team. Keep reading for all the details about the couple’s surprising venture into sports.
Mark Consuelos & Kelly Ripa Purchase Professional Sports Team
Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos are known now mainly for their roles as talk show hosts. However, longtime fans watched the two fall in love on the ABC soap All My Children back when they were up-and-coming stars.
The couple, who have been married for nearly 30 years, first met when Mark Consuelos joined All My Children as the love interest of Kelly Ripa’s character. But the sparks didn’t stop after the cameras stopped rolling. While their characters were falling in love on screen, Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa were falling in love for real.
They eloped to Vegas in 1996 at the spur of the moment, but it may have been the best decision of their lives. A close second might be their recent purchase of a professional sports team.
The real-life married couple Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa recently took a short vacation to Italy. The European country holds a special place in Mark’s heart because he spent a lot of his childhood there before moving to the United States. His connections to Italy spurred the couple to make a massive purchase a few years ago. They bought the Campobasso Football Club.
ESPN Documentary Details, Trailer
Watching soccer and turning a team into champions are vastly different experiences. ESPN cameras were there to capture Mark Consuelos and Kelly Ripa’s attempt to turn their new Italian soccer team into a winning one.
Running with the Wolves follows the highs and lows of sports ownership and putting together the right team. The name of the documentary comes from the team’s nickname of Lupi, which means wolves in Italian.
In a statement to PEOPLE magazine, the couple described the soccer team as “the underdog that lives in all of us.” During their pursuit of creating a winning team, they have to deal with injuries to the players, as well as the demands of their daytime talk show and family life.
Viewers can watch it all in a four-part docuseries on ESPN. The trailer shows the stressful moments of owning the team, as well as the couple’s trademark humor. When discussing adding to the team, Kelly Ripa jokingly asks if they’re picking players based on how good-looking they are.
ESPN promoted the docuseries by teasing what the new owners have to deal with. “Injuries affect the team as a relentless head coach pushes players to the brink, while Mark and Kelly feel the pressure of the fans’ demands.”
Will the team make the playoffs or fail? The first two episodes of Running with the Wolves premiere on ESPN and ESPN+ on July 29th, followed by the last two episodes on July 31st.
Jennifer Havener grew up in a small town in Upstate New York. She earned her B.A in Writing & Literature from Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado. She always knew watching reality TV shows and soap operas, particularly ‘Days of Our Lives’, would come in handy someday. When she’s not writing, she’s playing with her dogs, Lola and Ruger