Onya Omega.
Mero, how many AFL footballers have boot contracts? I assume someone like Buddy or Gary Ablett would have a personal deal. But do most players simply buy their own boots?
Players haven't provided their own boots since the 1970s.
They don't even clean them, the club has a guy for that.
What used to happen, and I assume it's still the same, is they have one pair for games and another for training.
Next year, your game pair becomes your training pair and you get a new game pair.
This way the latest models of boots are always getting a showing.
Clubs have deals with manufacturers, usually their apparel manufacturer, but players can have their own deal independent of this. Simon Madden was one of the first to have his own deal in the mid 80s when he started wearing Blades and the club were sponsored by adidas. Back then they covered over the Blades logo with black texta.
There would be very few players who have a boot deal, because it would have to be a different manufactuer than the apparel supplier, and it would have to be someone photographed a lot. Ablett and Franklin might, but someone like Jobe Watson, his club captain and best player does not. So it would be the top 10 or so players max, I would have thought.