Goodnight and thanks for the laughs!
The Tugun-based surfer Mick Fanning, a three-time world champion, has announced his shock split from the multi-billion dollar sugar-and-caffeine merchant Red Bull after twenty three years.
Mick Fanning, who is forty-three or thereabouts, broke the news to his over million followers earlier today.
“Cheers Red Bull! After 23 amazing years packed with fun projects, unique experiences and wild adventures I’m moving on. Red Bull has always provided next level support to me, my family and my team in my professional and personal life. In recent years I’ve loved having opportunities to connect with other Red Bull athletes and aspiring young surfers to impart some of the knowledge I’ve collected along the way. Over the years we achieved great things but when I reflect on my time with Red Bull it’s the life long friendships with the staff and athletes that I’m most grateful for.”
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It’s been a remarkable career for a man born into hard-scrabble circumstances in Sydney’s outer west, an hour from the beach.
Three months ago, the immensity of his worth, thirteen million dollars, was revealed as well as the revelation Mick Fanning was so depressed he struggled to get out of bed following his premature retirement at the end of 2015, his Great White encounter, a world title loss to Adriano de Souza, the death of his brother Peter and divorce from wife Karissa.
Mick Fanning accrued his riches via his sponsorship with Red Bull, various property plays as well as co-founding the craft brewery Balter with a few pals and selling it for $128 mill.
Lately,
Mick Fanning has parlayed his cash into a wildly diverse series of businesses, including “ethical” dog food brand Scratch, biotech company Sea Forest, a burger chain Fritzenberger and a Byron Bay yoga studio.
Welcome to the MonsterRockStar team Mick. We have combined Monster Energy Drink, with equal parts Rock Star Energy Drink and shitty stepped-on cocaine. Your payment will be 20 baggies per week and you will be required to attend all Paul Fisher festival events and all WSL after parties.
Remember the days when you’d get off the beers, smash 15 red bull vodkas & wake up feeling like a heroine addict.
Word is Eugine’s still on the books
The morning heart palpitations were always a sign of vodka & red bull ingestion.
there’s a lil’ bit of Eugene in all of us…also, sugarless bull…
Sugarless..? Was in LKF in HK about 8 years ago in a little bar on the corner called stormies, with a mate who loved the joint. We used to work over there a bit so were in China every quarter ( my favourite bar was insomniac, but that’s beside the point )
Anyway, my mate has a mate behind the bar ‘looking after us’ I’d had a few & didn’t like the look of the red bull he was pouring us, as in China / Hk there’s ‘fake’ or cheaper
everything. I questioned him which in turn turned into an
argument, which in turn resulted in me pulling him through said drinks & the beer taps, ice & shit & over the bar, onto the floor on my side of the bar. Within seconds I was dealing with the large black security guards by means of side stepping & sprinting down the hill & into insomniac. My mates strolls
down 20 minutes later
laughing & tells me I’m banned from stormies, until the next trip anyway
RIP stormies. Another victim on C19
* just remembered the joint. It’s Insomniac, not dusk till dawn it’s is in Wanchai
This is the ongoing shake-up of surfing sponsorship, it’s becoming clear the adulation of old retired no longer relevant proffesional surfers is a thing the older generation of amature wannabe boardrider club types cling too , it is not aligned to the modern generations focus on cutting edge and progression , most don’t give a fuck who Tom Curran is and if it was not for rip curl rolling him out at comps the majority would never have heard of him other than maybe a passing glance in a movie clip.
Same for Fanning Occy n Taj those recent heritage heats did more harm to thier brand’s and images than anything else they have ever done.
Fire them all put your money where it gets its best return that’s the way it’s heading.
Red Bull base jumpers seem the most on brand
https://youtu.be/sKqTe8F18s…
searchin for Urchin Septus…
Over 800,000 Chinook Salmon Dead Days After Release from California’s ‘State-of-the-Art’ Hatchery. It still isn’t clear exactly what killed about 830,000 baby salmon (or salmon fry).
They hadn’t built up resistance to microplastics is the obvious and correct answer.
faulty bailey’s step ladders say some…illegal to capture octo pus in cali. locals wrote grants and got greenbucks to restour Ojai creeks…and sensitive crossings/
put my hundred spot on….?
Rich cunt
Thinking Mick actually drinks Red Bull is like thinking Kelly actually rides FireWire. Thanks for the Million$$$ of Memorie$$! “It gives you Wings” and a Golden Parachute…
Find Fanning boorish in most things. The Red Bull connection passed me by but not him it seems. Lots of wonga for not much output.
The meeting of Mr Red Bull and the White Shark live in a wsl event was the advertising coup of the century it has to be noted. The one time in history that a sponsor got value for money from anything surf related.
Odd that Stab didn’t appreciate my thoughts on this in their own article about Mick (comment has since been removed)
https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
they detected a slur…were we drinking?
Amazing the shit people will swallow if you put a colorful label on it.
meh … parko > mick — and never forget it was Julian who paddled toward the shark to help out.
four amigos minus one, nearly two…
The shot before this should have been the header, where they’ve popped the baggie of white powder over the crowd.
long lines in the men’s latrine…
What the fuck is up with you retards in California? Adam Schiff garnered the most votes?? Cali should be ceded to Mexico and do away with the whole lot
There are actual political forums you can post in.
garvey v schitt run-off in november. but garv won handily for filling in short term? following politics is almost as tough as following the WSL/ISA/Oly follies…
Red Bull… gives you things!
I was utterly devastated when I heard the news, and don’t know if I can go on with life. Poor Mick.
Should we start the Go fund me?
Ah good for him, seems like a nice enough bloke. Must be somewhat savvy too, guy has so much money he has to stack it sideways
No he’s 100% Top Shelf fo realz!
truth. good bloke.
It’s all well and good
For Mick to the so gracious
But what’s Eugene think?
it’s happy hour somewhere?
How quickly we forget the bottle opener sandal!
The reef rep went up to mick at some functi9n and said to him “hey mick, thanks, that bottle opener bought me a new house”! And mick said “yeah it bought me one too”!
walked a thousand miles in those puppies and never used the tab. whose nose what i was stepping in…
Red Bull sucks and we all know it. All the ghouls who ride for them need to wake up and stop pushing that poison on the kids. Sell outs.
Red Bull plays a massive role in propping up surf contests and surfers, both amateurs and pros. None of them are gonna drop a sponsorship because some people are mad about a drink having caffeine in it
As bad as Marlborough
Red Bull co founder died a few years ago, I believe there is some concern in F1 that the new owners aren’t so keen on having two f1 teams, it could be the same with their extensive lineup of “extreme sports” athletes. Could be a sign of things to come!
Fingers crossed
They’ll keep tearing it all down til only Christian Horner remains, standing in the smoldering ruins with his patched up shirt and shit eating smirk looking for a mic
Riccardo will still be saying “so you are saying there is a chance?” at getting his redbull seat back
ha, for sure
Hopefully that German foil guy is on the chopping block next!
Oh well, that goes to show how much notice I’ve ever taken of the stickers on his boards.
I thought he was solely a Rip Curl bloke, and if you’d asked who was with Red Bull I would’ve said JOB, Kai and Carissa, and can’t think of any others.
Surely I’m not the only one, so Red Bull have possibly wasted a lot of cash on ineffective advertising by paying him all those years.
Has anyone anywhere ever bought a Red Bull because of Mick ?
Beer bottle opening sandals ? Yes.
Red Bull ? Perhaps not…
Mateus Herdy and Morgan Cibilic.. Michael Hooper is in that photo too.
Morgan is payed in stickers and the odd hat.
Mick fanning was one of the only redbull athletes ever to not be required to wear the hat because I believe he had a head to toe contract with ripcurl for apparel. He was always holding a Red Bull can in his hand. If you watch closely when he won an event the redbull can was in hand seconds after the win and before the interviews took place
When I think about red bull I think about the first time drinking red bull vodka’s in high school and waking up the next morning wondering what in the hell happened the night before. Nothing good I later found out.
Thats gotta make you a high school teacher, right?
and that cute blonde slipped you a mickey and later you were fanning her!
To be fair you are a 60 year old ex Surfer living in the middle of bum fuck nowhere.
Someone rolled off the third side (foot) of their bed today. Extra grumpy
I’m actually in a fantastic mood today Otto! Reads a bit mean though. Maybe “you’re hardly their demographic” next time?
You do know there’s a fantastic grumpy mood too, don’t you?
Let’s just agree that I’m a arsehole.
Moderation shouldn’t be so burdensome
Yeah, but I’ve watched the comps on SkyTV for years (till this year since Sky dumped them, bastards) but guess just never took much notice of his stickers, even during the shark attack (which incidentally was just mentioned by Rigger Richardson on the live cricket from Christchurch, the attack, not the stickers, about how he’d like to retire in South Africa and surf J-Bay but admitted to slowness on his backhand).
Unlike Caio and Sally’s impressive sticker collections…
Gabe and Italo win the sticker contest. The extra weight on those poor boards!
Mick was def one of the few who moved merchandise.