Erling Haaland’s Taxidermy Raccoon Just Flooded the Dallas Store the Norwegian World Cup Star Got It From

Erling Haaland walked off a plane in Oslo carrying a stuffed raccoon holding a whiskey bottle.

That souvenir came from a small Dallas store that had no idea what was coming.

A $750 novelty item just triggered an online order rush that hasn't stopped since.

A $750 Store Decoration Becomes a Global Souvenir

Haaland and his Norway teammates rolled up to Wild Bill's Western Store in downtown Dallas hours after beating Ivory Coast in the World Cup knockout round.

Nobody working the floor that day knew who was walking in.

Owner Cody Newport said the call just told him a player was coming, nothing more.

An hour later, the reigning face of European soccer was getting fitted for a cowboy hat he had never owned in his life.

Haaland tried on exotic boots, branded his initials into a belt buckle, and posed in a shirt reading "Y'all Can Kiss My Dallas."

Then he spotted the raccoon.

The taxidermied critter, clutching an empty whiskey bottle, had been sitting in the store as decoration for years.

"We bought them just to put in the store as decoration," Newport said.

Haaland bought it anyway, along with the rest of his haul.

He walked out a paying customer for a piece of inventory that was never even supposed to be for sale.

Two weeks later, he stepped off a plane in Oslo.

The same raccoon was tucked under one arm.

A designer tote bag hung off the other shoulder.

Norway had just been eliminated by England in the quarterfinals.

Nobody online was talking about the loss.

They were talking about the raccoon.

Wild Bill's Western Store Turns One Photo Into a Sales Record

The image spread across social media within hours, and Google searches for "taxidermied raccoon" spiked over 5,000 percent almost overnight.

Wild Bill's sold out of the raccoon completely, along with more than 2,000 units of the "Y'all Can Kiss My Dallas" shirt.

The store had to flip on international shipping for the first time in its 40-year history just to keep up.

Orders poured in from overseas fans who had never set foot in Texas and now wanted a piece of it anyway.

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Newport said the reaction has been unlike anything the store has ever seen.

Julie Newport, who co-owns the store with her husband, said the visit turned into something bigger than a good afternoon of sales.

The Newports had roped off part of the floor ahead of the visit, and they've since preserved part of the shop as a keepsake of the moment, complete with Haaland's signed soccer ball and a print of the viral airport photo.

Haaland then turned to Instagram, letting fans vote on a name for his new souvenir.

The options included "Cowboy," "Ranger," "TEX," and "R.O.W." – Raccoon on Wheels, a nod to Norway's own viral rowing celebration from earlier in the tournament.

This wasn't a spur-of-the-moment buy either. Haaland had filmed the same raccoon display on Snapchat days before he ever left Texas.

The Real Winner Wasn't on the Scoreboard

Norway didn't win the World Cup.

They didn't even make the semifinals.

But a family-owned Western wear store in downtown Dallas just had the single best month in its entire 40-year history, and it happened because one Norwegian striker wanted to look like a cowboy for a day.

That's the kind of return corporate marketing departments spend millions chasing and almost never catch.

Wild Bill's didn't run an ad campaign, didn't pay an influencer, and didn't design a single viral moment on purpose.

They just treated a soccer star like a regular customer, let him try on a hat, and got out of the way.

Compare that to Under Armour's much-hyped female athlete campaign a few years back, which needed a full quarter of runtime just to move sales 28 percent.

Wild Bill's beat that number by lunchtime, using a $750 store decoration and zero advertising budget.

Nike and Adidas have armies of marketing executives whose entire job is manufacturing exactly the kind of moment a Dallas cowboy store just stumbled into by accident.

That's not luck.

That's what happens when a business built on decades of just being decent to customers finally gets noticed by the rest of the world.

Texas didn't need a trophy to win this World Cup.

It just needed one dead raccoon, one honest cowboy hat fitting, and a striker willing to fly home looking ridiculous on purpose.

Cody Newport says the orders are still coming in every single day, and he doesn't expect that to slow down anytime soon.

Somewhere in Oslo right now, there's a taxidermied raccoon with a name, a whiskey bottle, and a better travel record than most tourists will ever have.

Sources:

• Bethany Erickson, "Erling Haaland snags the best Texas souvenir," D Magazine, July 14, 2026.
• FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth staff, "Erling Haaland brings stuffed raccoon from Dallas western store back to Norway," FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, July 2026.
• FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth staff, "Erling Haaland's Dallas Western wear purchase goes viral," FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth, July 2026.
• CBS Texas staff, "Norwegian star Erling Haaland's Dallas visit boosts Wild Bill's Western Store, owner says," CBS Texas, July 2026.
• Mary Roeloffs, "How Erling Haaland And Vozinha Were Among World Cup's Winners – Even With No Trophy," Forbes, July 15, 2026.
• Its Fun Doing Marketing staff, "50+ Best Viral Marketing Campaign Examples & Case Studies," itsfundoingmarketing.com, April 2, 2025.