By Andrew Wu
Christian Petracca isn’t bigger than the Melbourne Football Club, but Brand Petracca certainly is. At least on social media.
Cooking is Petracca’s side earn. His side earn has become a sideshow. Since his playing future at Melbourne first came into question three weeks ago, we have learnt more about Petracca’s black bean noodles, pesto chicken melt and roasted salmon and greens salad than we have where he wants to play next year.
Melbourne star Christian Petracca is building a brand off the field, including his popular cooking videos on Instagram.Credit: Photos: Getty Images, Shutterstock. Artwork: Jamie Brown
The frustration among Demons fans and the club could best be summed up by an exasperated supporter replying to one of Petracca’s cooking videos on Instagram: “All this turmoil going on with the Dees, but thank f--- we’ve got a Crispy Rice Paper Pork & Veggie Dumplings recipe!”
The longer Petracca does not speak publicly, the more room there is for rumour and innuendo to fill the vacuum. The theory Petracca wants out of Melbourne for Carlton or Collingwood so he can grow his personal brand has grown legs.
Fans can begrudgingly cop their stars leaving for more money or on-field opportunities – it’s common – but doing so for more social media followers?
There is a belief held by some at the Demons, according to a source with knowledge of the matter, that the club’s issues are being used by Petracca as a way to break out of the remaining five years of his contract and head to a big Victorian club, thereby increasing his public profile.
Those issues include concerns over the club’s culture – raised after Joel Smith’s suspension for an alleged drugs breach, Clayton Oliver’s off–field behaviour, the Demons board’s battle with former president Glen Bartlett. As reported by this masthead, Petracca is also upset at what he feels was a lack of support by the club after his life-threatening injury.
Petracca’s representatives say his personal brand is not a factor in his decision-making.
Leaving a club to grow one’s individual brand does not sit well among football fans, who expect their players to put the jumper first. St Kilda star-turned-pundit Leigh Montagna gave his assessment of the public’s change towards Petracca this week.
“It isn’t coming out well for Christian at the moment, I don’t think,” Montagna said on Triple M. “I think there’s starting to be a turn in regards to what the perception is of Christian Petracca.”
Ben Simmons (left) and Christian Petracca as juniors.
That Petracca and NBA basketballer Ben Simmons, whose attitude has been questioned, were close childhood friends is not helping dissuade the narrative the star Demon is being selfish.
In a discussion about his brand on the popular Dyl & Friends podcast with host Dylan Buckley in February, long before the recent controversy, Petracca spoke about his passion for cooking and how it could set him up for life after football but insisted “football will always be my No.1 priority”.
“I always want to keep my main thing my main thing,” Petracca said.
Monetising his considerable social media following has become another professional priority for Petracca, as is his right. Pasta bakes, stir fries and salads may not be worth as much as kicks, marks and handballs to Petracca – yet – but he’ll be hanging up the boots long before he hangs up the frying pan.
Using back-of-the-envelope calculations from numbers given by experts in the influencing industry, it’s not a stretch that Petracca could earn about $500,000 a year from his culinary pursuits – well short of his $1 million-plus-a-year playing contract but not bad for a side earn.
Petracca’s 473,000 followers on Instagram are a fraction of that of cricketers David Warner (10.8 million) and Steve Smith (4 million), basketballer Simmons (7 million) and F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo (9 million), but an overwhelming majority of that audience is based in Australia, and more than likely in the southern states where football thrives.
A skim through his @on.trac5 Instagram account shows 31 companies have had their brands in a paid partnership to appear on Petracca’s well-watched videos.
Natalie Giddings – the chief executive of influencer agency Hoozu, who help brands run their influencer programs – has worked with Petracca and his fiancee Bella Beischer, a lawyer who manages some of the Demons star’s non-football commercial deals.
Giddings would not confirm exactly how much Petracca, with an average of more than 500,000 views across his last 50 posts, could command for using a brand on his video but said, “for that type of talent and appeal you’d be looking at $7000 to $15,000”.
Applying the lower end of that range, a conservative estimate of those fees would be about $350,000, given he posts about five videos a week, of which 20 per cent are a paid partnership, as stated on Instagram and denoted with the hashtag #ad.
Christian Petracca and partner Bella Beischer at last year’s Brownlow.Credit: Getty Images
Petracca also has a deal with publishers Hardie Grant for a cookbook, titled Christian Petracca’s On Trac Cookbook, that will hit the shelves next August.
One experienced publishing consultant believes Petracca could command an advance “worth considerably more than $100,000 but less than $200,000”.
“If you’re monetising cooking on social media, he’d have sponsorship deals, but also publishers are very keen to monetise his following,” the publishing consultant said on the condition of anonymity so they could speak more freely.
“At one stage with one publisher, I was asked if I would work with him if they got the book. Talking to them, they saw the potential as being really broad because a lot of his following is in teenagers. ‘Can we have Trac tonight?’
“That is huge for a publisher because it’s got nothing to do with his footy profile or being vaguely interested in his cooking.”
The consultant is predicting Petracca’s book to sell 20,000 to 30,000 copies, but doubts he has a long-term future in cookbooks, such is the competitiveness of the genre.
“Cookbooks had a boom time [during COVID], and there are still a lot of cookbooks around,” the consultant said.
“I think he is the real deal when it comes to cooking. I’ve heard him do publicity with the influence of his nonna, but he’s not reinventing anything.
“People are very happy cooking Christian Petracca’s dishes from Instagram. Will they cough up $45 for a book?”
Part of Petracca’s appeal to brands is that he is an amateur cook, the thinking being if a footballer can make these chicken hokkien noodles or red curry wonton soup, then why can’t I?
“Brands like Coles, Woolworths, HelloFresh, they’re not trying to talk to chefs, they want to talk to the everyday person, that’s why he’s so appealing,” Giddings said.
Until recent speculation about growing his brand as being the reason for a potential change of clubs, there was hardly a negative word said about Petracca, a champion player with a clean image on and off the field who also presented well in front of the camera.
Though Petracca would logically win new fans by switching to a club with a larger supporter base, it also comes with the risk of losing his existing Melbourne fans. As a Carlton or Collingwood player, for example, he would also polarise opposition fans in the manner he has not as a star at a medium-sized club like the Dees.
Giddings rejected the premise a change of clubs would help grow Petracca’s following.
“He’s already got a large following. Close to 200,000 is a significant audience.
“I don’t think he could get any more famous. He’s a really popular guy, I’m not sure moving clubs would help him.
“We work with a whole range of people and … only a handful are able to convert to a monetisable audience. It does take a lot of skill.”
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