Legendary AFL player, Rory Sloane loves Hard Fizz alcoholic seltzer, so much, he put his money where his taste buds are and bought into the company.

The recently retired Adelaide Crows superstar and his wife, Belinda have joined a dream team of Hard Fizz owners including Grammy-nominated DJ, FISHER, his podcaster wife, Chloe, professional surfers Laura Enever and Nikki Van Dijk and TV chef Hayden Quinn.

Certainly, those sparkling cans, decorated in jewel-coloured flavours, like baubles on a Christmas tree, are enticing. They’re also 99% sugar free, 77 calories and vegan friendly.

“Once I discovered that Hard Fizz was one of the healthiest alcoholic beverages on the market with zero sugar and no after-effects, I was sold,” Sloane tells Australian Life.

 It may be a key investment. According to the latest figures, the brand has sold more than 4.5 million cans worth over $19 million and is now Australia’s number one independently owned alcoholic seltzer brand by value.

 Known as one of the nicest guys in the game, Rory Sloane will be packing plenty of Hard Fizz to share in his home town of Melbourne over the Christmas break. 

“Our family is a little bit chaotic. We have three young children and a couple of dogs, so we’ll drive back to Victoria and spending time travelling around and making sure we see everyone.  Both Belinda and I are originally from there and we grew up around the beach, so our Christmas will be close to the water,” he says.

Travelling in the car with the family will be the Rory Sloane signature ham that he takes such pride in baking.

“A big group of us do an annual ham bake in our Webber Kettles. There’s usually about 20 to 30 Webbers in the backyard, so that’s pretty special,” he explains.

Next year promises to be a big one for the former `Crows’ captain.  Just for starters, he will be right back in the spotlight with a role on Nine’s Wide World Of Sports.  He will also be appearing on Nine News in Adelaide; The Footy Show and Footy Classified where he will “dive into” the analytics of the game.

“I loved that side of it, when I was playing football,” he comments, “always trying to get into the heads of the other team to find out what they were doing.”

Rory Sloane is also plunging into the business world as a director of Chapman Capital Partners. He’ll be working closely with Rob Chapman – a former chairperson of the Adelaide Football Club and the equally talented, Jennifer Ma. Sloane will be involved in capital raising and helping companies to acquire or sell businesses. He brings a lot to the table.

“The really high-level skill set you learn with professional sport, correlates to the business world,” he explains. I’m looking forward to helping people through the lessons I’ve learned in football and I think there’s lots of similarities.”

However, he has no doubt this role will take him right out of his comfort zone and that 2025 will be a massive year of growth for him.

It was recurring problems with a detached retina that forced Rory Sloane into retirement from one of the sports he loves. However, it’s proving to be a real turning point in his life.

“At the age of 18, I moved from Melbourne to Adelaide and spent nearly the whole of time as a young adult at the Adelaide Crows. For 16 years, I was fortunate to have been surrounded by amazing people who helped to shape me into the person that I am,” he says.

“But there’s still a lot of life to be lived and enjoying it to the fullest is where I excel.” 

Those good vibes and the integrity that Rory Sloane, brings to everything that he does, will no doubt be coming back to him in spades.