Fame and fortune won't change Dustin Martin as eve of 2018 season arrivesMark Robinson,
Herald Sun
22 March 2018DUSTIN Martin’s ink isn’t a patch on Dustin Martin Inc.
The challenge now is Dusty Martin Inc - the burgeoning business side of the Richmond megastar - doesn’t interfere with Dusty Martin the footballer.
The most enchanting figure in the AFL starts his 2018 campaign against Carlton and while several aspect of Martin’s life have changed in the past six months, those close to him say the success, the money and the publicity have not changed him at all.
“From what I have seen Dustin is more determined than ever to play good football for seven years to repay the faith Richmond has put in him,” his manager Ralph Carr told the Herald Sun.
“It’s business as usual.”
Wayne Carey at North Melbourne was the first millionaire player to combine football and personal brand. He says Martin won’t be influenced by the trappings of success.
“Dusty proved last year the outside noise doesn’t matter,” Carey said.
“I don’t think there’s been a player in the history of the game who’s been under that sort of pressure. You think of Dangerfield when he was in Adelaide, but that was the Adelaide media compared to the Melbourne media.
“How he handled the year, and didn’t sign until just before the finals, and to be able to perform under that pressure, and then sign and have the hoo-haa about signing and still perform maybe even better ... there’s not too many athletes, not just in footy but I think in the world, that can cop or handle that pressure and still perform.”
It might be business as usual on the field, as Carr said, but it’s certainly not off it.
Business is booming.
Martin has been a long-time client of Puma, but in the off-season Carr added Bonds to the Dusty stable.
The TV advert — it had the Tigers champ running around the streets of suburban Melbourne in his jocks chasing his dog — scintillating and produced a boom result.
Martin was also one of the faces in Foxtel’s endearing “Mrs T” campaign alongside Steve Smith, Patrick Dangerfield, Tim Cahill, Sam Kerr and Cameron Smith and was centre stage for the Fox Footy promo, which pitched Martin against a group of athletes on a train and who Martin dispenses with one after the other.
His “Evenings with Dustin Martin” series at Crown Ca-sino have also been a success.
His most recent campaign is with sound system giant Bang & Olufsen. A billboard has been erected at Punt Rd Oval, picturing Martin in his Tigers gear and wearing headphones. The caption reads: “The only sound you want to hear is the thought inside your head.”
It’s quintessential Martin because he’s man of few words.
Carr’s plan to turn Martin into a marketing juggernaut started at least five years ago.
When people were telling him to dump Martin as a client, Carr had plans to make a Martin a millionaire off the ground and, if his footy demanded it, a millionaire on it.
Over the summer at least eight national and international companies wanted Martin to be an ambassador, but it was Carr who went to Bonds and not vice versa.
Carr and Martin are a curious team in that Martin always follows Carr’s direction but at the same time Carr maintains he doesn’t do or say anything without Martin’s permission.
Whatever it is, it works.
There was the circus of the GWS visit — hard hats and all — in 2013 which looked foolish at the time, but there was nothing foolish about the holdout last year.
After one of the most astonishing seasons in AFL history, Martin earned himself a seven-year deal worth anywhere between $8m-$9.5m.
The commercial bonanza over summer could reap him as much as $500,000, maybe more, meaning Martin is one the most marketable and rewarded footballers since Carey at the start of the century.
In 2002, Carey earned $1m as a North Melbourne player and an estimated $500,000 as a brand, which included a Nike deal worth up to $200,000.
Which is curious again because the biggest-name players of today aren’t earning any more money than what Carey did in early 2000 — 18 years ago. Is the AFLPA really looking after the superstars?
On face value, Martin is on more money than Carey was in 2002 — $1.8 million to $1.5 million — but to equate that to today’s terms, Carey would be earning about $3 million.
Carey says dealing with being an off-field juggernaut, as Martin has become, depends on the mindset of the individual.
“Dust comes across as a guy who does everything right in preparing himself, but he’s not a guy who sits around if he’s had a bad game or a game he thought he could do better and dwells on it,” Carey said.
“Just like he doesn’t sit around and look at himself in the mirror when he plays a beauty. He goes out there, does what he has to do, which is his sanctuary, then performs and almost forgets about and starts again.
“You don’t have that sort of consistency under that sort of pressure if you didn’t have that mindset.
Carey acknowledged that on the eve of the season and after a season of extraordinary achievement and financial reward, Martin remained the AFL’s Mr Indestructible.
“The only thing which can stop him is his body, his injuries,” Carey said.
“He’s in rare form and his frame of mind is, he goes out there knowing that if he’s anywhere near his best, no one will get near him. It’s a good frame of mind to be in.”
http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/afl/teams/richmond/fame-and-fortune-wont-change-dustin-martin-as-eve-of-2018-season-arrives/news-story/6bfcd500319ffb31713ad3cda6fed519
