Small English soccer team has huge year, thanks in part to Newfoundland and Labrador

By Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press on September 25, 2024.

ST. JOHN’S, N.L. – A soccer game in England on Tuesday night drove a spike in online traffic across the Atlantic to a website launched by the Newfoundland and Labrador government.

Newfoundland and Labrador has its name and website emblazoned on the jerseys of the Barrow AFC soccer team from Northern England, in a $171,000 advertising bid to lure doctors, nurses and other skilled workers to Canada’s easternmost province.

After a banner season, the fourth-tier team from Barrow-in-Furness earned a match against top-tier titans Chelsea FC in front of about 38,000 fans on Tuesday.

Immigration Minister Sarah Stoodley says the province’s HomeAwaits.ca site gets about 50,000 visitors each day, and that figure jumped by about 1,200 since the Barrow AFC players hit the pitch.

The soccer team has also seen returns on the sponsorship – spokesperson Ethan Thatcher says fans love the jerseys, and they sell out “straight away” after a new batch arrives.

Barrow AFC lost the match against Chelsea with a score of 5-0, but Thatcher says they’ve still got a league championship ahead of them, which they plan to win – all while wearing their Newfoundland and Labrador shirts.

“Our fans have really picked up on the sponsorship,” Thatcher said in an interview. “We’re selling merchandise which has the Maple Leaf or has Newfoundland and Labrador’s name on it. It’s “¦ such an unusual but a great sponsorship.”

Thatcher says the team’s posts on the X platform unveiling this year’s uniform got nearly one million views in just the first week they were up.

“That doesn’t happen for a team like Barrow,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 25, 2024.

Note to readers: This is a corrected story. A previous version said the sponsorship deal was $171 million. It was $171,000.

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