HAALAND'S $750 RACCOON CARRIES A CREDITS LINE HOME

Gardermoen Airport, July 13. Erling Haaland comes down the stairs off the Norway team plane with a Dolce and Gabbana tote over one shoulder and a taxidermied raccoon tucked under the other arm, its glass eyes fixed somewhere past the tarmac. A photographer named Jan Langhaug gets the shot for NTB. Within hours it is running on AFP's wire and licensed through Getty to newsrooms from Toronto to Tel Aviv. Read the credit line the way you would read liner notes and the photo tells two stories at once, one about a raccoon, one about how a single frame from Oslo ends up on your phone.

Four Bylines Ride Home On One Photo

Start with the credit itself. Langhaug shoots for NTB, Norway's national news agency, which has moved photos through Agence France Presse since a distribution agreement the two struck in 1953 and layered a separate deal with the Associated Press in 2016 for multiformat coverage. That is the pipe. AFP puts the frame on its wire, Getty Images licenses and resells it, and outlets everywhere run the same six frames under four names within the hour. It is the same mechanic as a sample clearance on a record, a chain of who owns what running underneath something that looks like a spontaneous airport photo. Haaland's other bag habit gets the same treatment; a 317,000 dollar Hermes collection does not build itself without someone tracking every purchase and resale.

$750 Bought The Whiskey Raccoon

The raccoon has a name now, or is getting one. Haaland bought the handcrafted mount, listed as the Whiskey Raccoon and posed hugging a bottle on a wooden board, at Wild Bill's Western Store in Dallas. It cost 750 dollars and sold out at the shop once his photos went up. He captioned the arrival "It followed me home" with a raccoon emoji, then opened an Instagram poll asking fans to pick a name from Cowboy, Ranger, TEX, and R.O.W., a nod to Norway's viral rowing celebration from the group stage. R.O.W. was leading.

Teammates Got Cowboy Hats On His Card

The raccoon was a souvenir. The visit to Wild Bill's was a team outing. After Norway beat Cote d'Ivoire 2 1 at Dallas Stadium on June 30, Haaland took teammates and staff shopping and covered a bill close to 10,000 dollars, cowboy hats, custom boots, a longhorn belt buckle, and shirts that read Y'all can kiss my Dallas. That is a rollout decision as much as a shopping trip, a captain buying the room's mood after a result that mattered.

Cote d'Ivoire To England In Twelve Days

Norway had not reached a World Cup since 1998, a 28 year gap they closed with a perfect qualifying run, eight wins in eight, a 4 1 result over Italy in Milan to clinch it, and 16 goals from Haaland along the way. The 2026 tournament kept delivering. Cote d'Ivoire fell 2 1 on June 30. Brazil fell 2 1 in the round of 16 on July 5, Haaland scoring twice. England won the quarterfinal 2 1 on July 11, Jude Bellingham scoring twice himself, including the winner in extra time. The semifinal field that followed did not include Norway, but the quarterfinal was still the deepest run in the country's history, and it was Haaland's first major tournament as a senior international.

Kygo Remixed A Song Haaland Rapped At Fifteen

Here is the actual music credit buried in this story. In 2016, a 15 year old Haaland recorded "Kygo Jo" with under 17 teammates Erik Botheim and Erik Tobias Sandberg, rapping under the name Lyng as part of a group called Flow Kingz. The video sat quietly for a decade. After Haaland's brace against Brazil, Kygo, the actual producer, released an official remix, and the teenage track hit number one on Spotify in Norway with the YouTube original clearing 21 million views. That is a real credit, a real remix, a real chart placement, sitting inside a soccer story instead of a music one.

Follow The Money To Nike Instead Of The Raccoon

The formal money trail runs through Nike, which signed Haaland in 2023 to a deal reported between 20 million and 24 million dollars a year, plus smaller partnerships with Beats by Dre and Breitling. He also holds an ownership stake that predates all of this, the one FO covered when he bought into the hair tie holding his bun, Bon Dep. The raccoon is not on that balance sheet. It is worth 750 dollars and a photo credit, which is its own kind of currency this week.

Two facts carry the piece. Norway's run ended in a first ever quarterfinal after a 28 year gap, and Haaland walked off that plane holding a 750 dollar raccoon from a store in Dallas while a decade old rap song he made at 15 sat at number one behind him. Read the credits on either story and the raccoon stops being the punchline.