How one Irish soccer team turned to social causes to escape bankruptcy

The most valuable piece of real estate for a soccer team isn’t on the pitch, it’s on the front of the players’ jerseys, a foot-wide swath of fabric some companies will pay tens of millions of dollars to rent for a season. “I can’t conceive of any way where Bohs could be in a position that a fan of Bayern Munich in Munich or a fan of Manchester United in Manchester would want to buy a Bohs shirt for football reasons,” Daniel Lambert, the team’s youthful chief operating officer, said last week in a video conference call from Dublin. “There’s an awful lot of financial logic to this,” said Lambert, 37, whose club funnels much of that profit to migrant-aid groups, charities for the homeless or others providing medical assistant to Palestine. “If you engage somebody on a human, emotional level, you’re more likely to get a loyalty from them over a period of time.” Lambert knows a little bit about marketing since he’s co-owner of Bang Bang Cafe, in the shadow of Dalymount Park — as well as host of an eclectic podcast that emanates from the cafe — and is the manager of the Irish Republican hip-hop band Kneecap. With that shirt, meant to call attention to Ireland’s controversial “direct provision” system of housing migrants, gaining international news coverage, Bohemian has seen its merchandise sales increase more than 2,000% while average attendance last season was just 260 fans shy of the capacity of Dalymount Park, where the corner flags are rainbow-hued and a large red-and-black antiracism banner hovers above the supporters’ stand.