Blyth Spartans FC, located in the far northeast of England, toils in the National League North, the sixth tier of pro soccer in that country. Its stadium, Croft Park, holds only around 5,000 fans, meaning sponsorships are key to the team’s revenue in the absence of sizable ticket sales. Advertising boards ring the team’s pitch, including a curious banner that showed up just this week urging fans to “VISIT NORTH KOREA.”
A visit to Visit North Korea’s website reveals that the company is a travel agency — its LinkedIn page says it’s based in Shenzhen, China — with the unenviable task of getting people to, yes, visit North Korea, a country so isolated that it gets only about 5,000 Western tourists per year, according to a 2017 Guardian story.