Tom Baulch has extra followers than most AFL gamers, and will get the identical consideration the league’s professionals get once they return to their roots in clubland, however if you happen to’re solely watching footy on TV, you may not have ever heard of him.
Baulch, who manufacturers himself as Prime Train, is a 24-year-old TikTok famous person initially identified for his unorthodox exercise recommendation, however who has now constructed a social media-based empire that includes dietary supplements, merchandise and exercise packages in addition to the rigours of semi-professional regional soccer.
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A former WAFL Colt with East Perth, Baulch has since had stints within the NEAFL and VFL with Aspley, within the NTFL with the Darwin Buffaloes, and within the QAFL with Noosa earlier than transferring right down to the Ovens & Murray league to play for Wangaratta.
Baulch spoke solely to news.com.au about his journey via soccer, business, the eye he will get each on and off the sector, and the place he’s seeking to go subsequent.
Baulch now boasts over 280,000 followers on TikTok (greater than social media chef and 2021 Norm Smith Medallist Christian Petracca), in addition to nearly 79,000 followers on Instagram.
“I was very lucky, I gained my first 150,000 followers from ‘train like an athlete’ type content,” Baulch stated, referring to his unconventional exercise movies involving dynamic weightlifting and plyometric workout routines, and inspiring followers to “train like athletes’ rather than limiting themselves to the staple gym exercises typically favoured by bodybuilders.
“A few people then started to notice that I play footy as well, and I mixed in footy with my content and training – I was lucky enough to get onto the ‘Ball Magnets’ (comprising now-Collingwood midfielder Tom Mitchell and Carlton star Patrick Cripps), and we did a program together, and worked together doing various bits of content throughout (the 2022) pre-season.”
Baulch describes that preliminary introduction to AFL footballers as a boon for his profession, coming after a controversial second within the 2021 NTFL season whereas enjoying for the Darwin Buffaloes that noticed his profile skyrocket, probably for all of the incorrect causes.
“Knowing people like Tom Mitchell (who) then introduced me to a lot of the Hawthorn players as he was a Hawthorn footballer at the time, then introducing me to Collingwood footballers as well, and the same goes with (Cripps) as well, helped,” he stated.
“I was lucky to hopefully have made a good impression on those guys, and then that helped me kind of do my networking and connections throughout Melbourne, and that gave me a lot of confidence to move down here and start this new life.
“During one game in the NTFL … suddenly someone came up to me and offered me a beer! And I ended up getting a six-game suspension! But I also got to change my content a little bit, and I think a lot of people looked at me as a guy that doesn’t take himself too seriously, and I think that’s really important in Australian social media.
“If you take yourself too seriously, you’re looked at as a bit arrogant.”
Baulch obtained a two-game suspension from the NTFL for ingesting a sip of a fan’s beer after being charged with critical misconduct, decreased from a proposed 5 video games.
At the time, Baulch informed media that he’d rebuffed earlier gives in the course of the sport, however by the ultimate quarter, was “just trying to engage with the fans.”
“I had a few people running out on the field to take photos, taking the mickey a little bit but having a bit of fun, they were trying to hand me beers and I kept saying ‘no.’” he stated on the time.
“We were getting smashed and in the last quarter we were down by about 100 points, a stranger comes out on the ground and hands me a beer and I said bugger it.”
“I’d never do anything to harm the AFL because it’s my favourite sport.”
Baulch was additionally ordered by the AFLNT tribunal to take away the video from his social media platforms and write a letter of apology.
It is this type of consideration that Baulch usually revels in nonetheless, admitting that his social media presence makes him an on-field goal.
“I definitely cop it a little bit from the sidelines, definitely cop it a little bit from opposition and sometimes I cop it a little bit from teammates,” he stated.
“Honestly, it’s the world we live in and I’ll never want it to stop.
“I love the banter, I love that side of football.
“I think it’s so exciting, and it brings more people to the game, and I love adding a little bit of flair.
“I love adding a little bit of theatre to football and (especially) country and local football.
“We are so focused on the big leagues of the AFL, and that’s fantastic, it’s a magnificent competition, but you’ve got to remember where AFL players come from.
“They come from the country, they come from the grassroots, they come from smaller clubs around Australia and they have a voice that deserves to be heard as well.”
Growing up within the regional city of Kojonup in Western Australia, 250 kilometres southeast of Perth, Baulch is nostalgic for his childhood idolising the native seniors, and needs to recreate that for juniors within the cities he performs in.
“As human beings, we forget what we were like as kids,” he stated.
“When I was a kid, the Kojonup Football Club was the best club ever. The kids that come to these games, they absolutely love it and you’ve got to give all of your time and effort to these people because it means the absolute world to them.
“You might be kicking the footy with or giving your merch to the next great AFL footballer and what you’ve done for them, that little act of kindness could completely and utterly change their life.”
With this dedication to the nation soccer that he grew up enjoying alongside the sensible necessities of working an internet business that maintain him in capital cities, Baulch admits there’s a specific problem to spending his weekends in regional cities and his weeks in cities as a “fly-in, fly-out” participant.
“I’m very fortunate enough that I’ve got a good gym in the house and I’m very focused on my physical fitness,” he stated.
“I’m happy to train by myself. But the art of being a ‘fly-in, fly-out’ player is making good connections and making really prominent connections.
“When you get to a club, making sure you make friends with every single person that’s involved in the club, you’re polite, you’re respectful – that’s the most important thing, so that when you go to the club, you don’t feel like an outsider, you feel like you’re actually in the group.
“If you don’t do that, then you can feel like an outsider, you can feel a little bit ostracised.
“That’s really important that when you do go to a club, you might be ‘fly-in, fly-out’, you might not train with them that much, it’s just building those really strong connections. I think that’s the art of it.”
Despite this dedication to constructing off-field relationships, Baulch says he nonetheless struggles with the on-field connection, and does discover himself wishing often that he had extra time with teammates.
“I think I struggled in the first few games this year (for Wangaratta),” he stated.
“I probably didn’t have that connection and that rapport with my teammates.
“But the more time that I’ve spent with them, outside of footy as well, having a beer or having a feed with your teammates and with people involved with the club, that’s what people really respect.
“Sometimes I’ll drive down on a Thursday, and I’ll go train on a Thursday in Wangaratta.
“I think that kind of stuff is really appreciated by people surrounding the club and it’s really really important.
“If you show respect, you’re going to get it back every day of the week.”
On his private relationships, Baulch will get a whole lot of consideration for his brash appears to be like, and his relationship standing is one in all fixed hypothesis, and he’s secretive on his social media channels.
“I am taken at the moment, by a beautiful girl,” he says.
“We met in Melbourne probably in the first week (that I moved down).
“I moved down here probably eight months ago now … and the first girl I met, I really fell for.
“I’m very, very happy.
“She’s in social media as well, she’s got a degree in health.
“She works as a gymnastics teacher full time, which keeps her very busy … deals with a lot of children, which is good, because she’s patient, and you definitely need that when you’re around someone like me,” he joked.
An articulate man who boarded at Perth’s prestigious Hale School alongside the likes of Port Adelaide’s Mitch Georgiades and Gold Coast’s Jy Farrar (Hale can be the alma mater of Collingwood midfielder Tom Mitchell), Baulch has a level in Sports Journalism from the University of Queensland and says he desires to place it to make use of sooner or later.
“I want to have my own column or something in the paper or something to do with sport. I think that would be really cool,” he stated.
“I think it’s also really important for a sports journalist to understand what the player wants and how they want the story to be told. I think that’s something that I’m really going to try and learn.
“Maybe in five to ten years when everything dies down for me on social media, and I just want to have a job that I really enjoy that gives me a bit of stability in my life, I think that sports journalism might be the go for me.”
The future could lie within the fourth property for Baulch, however the current entails a fledgling on-line business that he says is his main supply of revenue.
In one latest TikTok, he replied to a critic who accused him of counting on his mother and father’ revenue, saying his main revenue is from “being an entrepreneur – not on mum and dad’s money.”
Baulch’s father Michael is a profitable business govt throughout the transport, agriculture and renewable sectors, and Baulch credit his mother and father with a lot of his success.
“A lot of where I’ve got to, I would attribute a lot of that to my parents because I think it was fantastic for forging a path for me,” he stated.
“Not so much in terms of financially, but more so in the way of telling me how to set up my business.
“I’m lucky enough to be surrounded by fantastic entrepreneurs that really helped me sort through my business the way that I wanted to.
“The initial capital came from the beginning working as a personal trainer, I worked at (gym chain) F45, and then started to do my own personal training on the side, and that’s where my initial capital all came from.
“I’ve been really fortunate to forge my business in that way … but I would never ever say I’ve done it all by myself or that I was the only person.
“I’ve got amazing friends and family that have helped me along the way and have been great mentors and role models for me.”
Source: www.news.com.au
