Prime Train: Local footy player with a cult following on social media opens up

A 24-year-old who has become one of the biggest online phenomena in Australian football has opened up on his high-flying lifestyle.

Tom Baulch has more followers than most AFL players, and gets the same attention the league’s professionals get when they return to their roots in clubland, but if you’re only watching footy on TV, you might not have ever heard of him.

Baulch, who brands himself as Prime Train, is a 24-year-old TikTok superstar initially known for his unorthodox workout advice, but who has now built a social media-based empire that incorporates supplements, merchandise and workout programs as well as the rigours of semi-professional regional football.

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A former WAFL Colt with East Perth, Baulch has since had stints in the NEAFL and VFL with Aspley, in the NTFL with the Darwin Buffaloes, and in the QAFL with Noosa before moving down to the Ovens & Murray league to play for Wangaratta.

Baulch spoke exclusively to news.com.au about his journey through football, business, the attention he gets both on and off the field, and where he is looking to go next.

Baulch has rubbed shoulders with AFL greats through his footy travels. Eddie Betts pictured. Picture: Instagram

Baulch now boasts over 280,000 followers on TikTok (more than social media chef and 2021 Norm Smith Medallist Christian Petracca), as well as almost 79,000 followers on Instagram.

“I was very lucky, I gained my first 150,000 followers from ‘train like an athlete’ type content,” Baulch said, referring to his unconventional workout videos involving dynamic weightlifting and plyometric exercises, and encouraging 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 initial introduction to AFL footballers as a boon for his career, coming after a controversial moment in the 2021 NTFL season while playing for the Darwin Buffaloes that saw his profile skyrocket, possibly for all the wrong reasons.

Tom Baulch with Tom Mitchell. Photo: @primetrain on Instagram

“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 said.

“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 received a two-game suspension from the NTFL for drinking a sip of a fan’s beer after being charged with serious misconduct, reduced from a proposed five games.

Baulch previously played for the Darwin Buffaloes in the NTFL. Picture: Tymunna Clements / AFLNT Media

At the time, Baulch told media that he’d rebuffed previous offers during the game, but by the final 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 said at 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 also ordered by the AFLNT tribunal to remove the video from his social media platforms and write a letter of apology.

Tom Baulch with social media influencer Alli Bailey. Photo: Instagram

It is this kind of attention that Baulch generally revels in however, admitting that his social media presence makes him an on-field target.

“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 said.

“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.”

Thomas Baulch in action for the Wangaratta Rovers in 2023. Photo: Melissa Beattie

Growing up in the regional town of Kojonup in Western Australia, 250 kilometres southeast of Perth, Baulch is nostalgic for his childhood idolising the local seniors, and wants to recreate that for juniors in the towns he plays in.

“As human beings, we forget what we were like as kids,” he said.

“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 commitment to the country football that he grew up playing alongside the practical requirements of running an online business that keep him in capital cities, Baulch admits there is a particular challenge to spending his weekends in regional towns and his weeks in cities as a “fly-in, fly-out” player.

“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 said.

“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.”

Baulch was previously with the Noosa Tigers in the QAFL. Picture: Craig Slaney Sports Photography.

Despite this commitment to building off-field relationships, Baulch says he still struggles with the on-field connection, and does find himself wishing occasionally that he had more time with teammates.

“I think I struggled in the first few games this year (for Wangaratta),” he said.

“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.”

Baulch with his partner. Photo: Instagram

On his personal relationships, Baulch gets a lot of attention for his brash looks, and his relationship status is one of constant speculation, and he is 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.

Tom Baulch with NSW Waratahs player Carlo Tizzano, whom he trains. Photo: @primetrain on Instagram

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 is also the alma mater of Collingwood midfielder Tom Mitchell), Baulch has a degree in Sports Journalism from the University of Queensland and says he wants to put it to use in the future.

“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 said.

“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.”

Baulch with Alfa Romeo Formula One driver and fellow Puma ambassador Valtteri Bottas. Photo: Instagram

The future may lie in the fourth estate for Baulch, but the present involves a fledgling online business that he says is his primary source of income.

In one recent TikTok, he replied to a critic who accused him of relying on his parents’ income, saying his primary income is from “being an entrepreneur – not on mum and dad’s money.”

Baulch’s father Michael is a successful business executive across the transport, agriculture and renewable sectors, and Baulch credits his parents with much of his success.

Baulch with former AFL player Mitch Robinson at the launch of the AFL23 video game. Photo: Instagram

“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 said.

“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.”