How a wild plan to send a VFL team to the US went to the top
IT was September 1987 and the VFL was in turmoil, some clubs were near bankrupt and another was relocated, leading to an audacious plan to send a team to the US. But just how close did it come to happening?
AFL News
Don't miss out on the headlines from AFL News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
GREED was good and Paul Hogan an international megastar when the crazy LA Crocodiles concept landed on the VFL board table in Jolimont Rd, East Melbourne.
It was September 1987 and the new national football competition was in turmoil.
Fitzroy, Footscray and Richmond were near bankrupt, South Melbourne had shifted to Sydney and the Brisbane Bears and West Coast Eagles had just completed their debut seasons.
ARMSTRONG: AFL LIFE A CULTURE SHOCK FOR DRAFTEES
READ THE FULL LA CROCS SUBMISSION TO THE VFL
RISING STAR: HOW AUSSIE RULES HELPS SIMMONS DOMINATE
Five months earlier, Allen Aylett had paid a visit to Perth property tycoon Errol Marron with a proposal.
Aylett had stepped down as VFL chairman in December 1984 but was working discretely behind the scenes on potential mergers and relocations.
“We were approached by Allen Aylett to take one of six teams out of Melbourne and relocate them to Canberra,” Marron said.
“I certainly got the impression that he had the authority of the league to get rid of some of these teams because they were in dire straits.”
Marron and Jeans West founder Alister Norwood were seen as money men capable of funding a relocation.
But a team in the nation’s capital wasn’t going to fly.
“We had a look at it and told Allen we weren’t interested in going to Canberra, we just couldn’t make that work, but it’s time a club was relocated offshore,” Marron said.
Their target became Los Angeles.
“We’d looked at New Zealand, Singapore, China and Japan ... but we didn’t think we could make it work anywhere else other than the USA,” Marron said.
“At that time ESPN were taking one game live every week and all the finals. The game was well established there - the Yanks loved it. They couldn’t understand it, but they loved it.
“We were the flavour of the month, Paul Hogan was like the king of Australia and had just released Crocodile Dundee, Alan Bond was winning the America’s Cup, and so we just rode in on all that.
“We thought we could really make it work.”
The radical proposal involved the Crocs playing four blocks of three games back in Australia with eight teams making the trip to LA every season.
Sponsors and airlines had signed on, stadiums were locked in and US sports network ESPN sounded out.
“The fixture will be arranged to suit the VFL and to obtain the maximum television coverage in Australia,” a formal submission lodged with the league in September 1987 said.
“For example, if a game was played at 2pm in LA on a Saturday, the game would be broadcast live commencing at 9am on a Sunday in Australia.
“This relocation would be the most significant event in Australian Rules Football history, and would represent the first step to a permanent, international competition.”
Thirty years on, Marron is adamant the prospect of pulling it off was real.
“We were hoping to kick it off in 1989 - we had the money upfront and after we announced it CUB came and said they wanted to sponsor us over there,” he said.
“Continental Airlines came in and said we’ll pick up all the airfares. We had money coming out of our ears - we couldn’t believe it.”
LISTEN: FORMER VFL BOSS ROSS OAKLEY EXPLAINS WHY THE PROPOSAL TO RELOCATE A TEAM TO LOS ANGELES WAS REJECTED
Offices in the Avenue of the Stars in Century City, LA, were also established.
“We put quite a few things in place to make it realistic and if they had pressed the button we would have had infrastructure in place to jump on straight away,” Marron said.
“We were ready to go if we had to.”
A fax from Aylett to Marron sent on September 14, 1987, suggests there was genuine momentum.
“My enthusiasm for the concept is second to none and we are keen to use our expertise and contacts within the VFL to put together those necessary ingredients to speed up the acceptance and subsequently make the concept happen as soon as possible,” Aylett wrote.
In a letter to then-VFL boss Ross Oakley, written on September 30, 1987, Marron declared: “The move internationally is inevitable. It is just a matter of time.”
Several meetings were held at the Hilton hotel in East Melbourne towards the end of the season.
Another letter reveals Oakley requested a proposed press conference to announce the plan be delayed until after the 1987 Grand Final.
“I had a long conversation with Ross Oakley on Friday and was pleased to hear after you had a phone conversation with him that you decided not to go ahead with the press conference,” Aylett told Marron in the September 14 fax.
“Ross was not against a public statement at the appropriate time ... he did mention to me that the week after the Grand Final would not receive any negative feedback from him.
“Errol, the more definitive statements that can be made at that time including a real positive interest from a club, the more impact the press conference will have ...
But the plan hit a hurdle when The Australian newspaper caught a sniff of the story during the finals.
“Dear Ross ... I was horrified to receive a fax of the article which appeared in this morning’s press,” a fax from Marron to Oakley says.
“I gave you an undertaking that I would make no comment on this matter and I have not. They did not contact me and I am at a complete loss how they received their information.”
A formal announcement was eventually made at the Hilton conference room on September 30 but enthusiasm had abated.
Minutes from the VFL’s board meeting in October 1987 reveal the concept was raised by Oakley and rejected.
“Chairman made reference to a proposal forwarded by the league by a Western Australian entrepreneur, which called for the relocation of an existing VFL team to Los Angeles and that such a team be known as the Los Angeles Crocodiles.
“It was resolved that no further action be taken.”
Marron believes $8 million in licence fees paid by syndicates behind the Bears and Eagles had stemmed the bleeding enough in clubland to kill off the LA Crocs concept.
“No one wanted to announce it and I think Ross went a bit cold on it,” Marron said.
“They were still settling in the Eagles and the new national competition.
“All the Melbourne teams had just been paid and it pulled them all out of the s--t and took the pressure off.”
Oakley, 75, last week confirmed knowledge of the plan but said Aylett was working independently of the VFL.
He said the concept was never seriously contemplated.
“It went to the board table but it was a unanimous no,” Oakley said.
“To send a team to LA was basically to lose the whole history of the team. We had an entrepreneur or two sitting around the commission table, but this was just a little bit beyond them.”
Asked if it could work today, Oakley said: “I think the tyranny of distance is still a major problem. Rugby union is really struggling with trying to introduce Argentina into the southern competition and with Japan’s entry, too.
“In time I can see having a team in New Zealand ... but who knows?
“And then you’ve got the problem of who the hell are these Australian Rules footballers in this massive town?
“To be noticed in a market like that you’d have to have an American billionaire who is prepared to say: ‘I love this game and I’m going to throw money at it’.”
Aylett, 83, told the Herald Sun: “I thought it was a bold idea and it’s still a bold idea. I supported and encouraged any concept or idea that was going to grow Australian football - be it the national competition, live television, Friday night and Sunday football, ground and spectator facilities and above all that an independent commission, not the clubs, to oversee the game.”
Marron said he doubted Aylett was acting without the approval of senior VFL figures.
“I don’t think he would have gone out actively promoting to relocate teams without their nod,” he said.
“He was pretty hot on it. He was quite supportive and said have a go, if you guys can make it work put something up. He wanted to get teams out of Melbourne and at the same time save them.
“I think his heart was in the right place. I have a feeling he wasn’t motivated for money, he genuinely just wanted to do it for football and to save the teams and save the comp and expand it.
“Looking back on it, there is some relief that it didn’t come off because it would have been life changing for me.
“I was waiting for the AFL to come and say show us the colour of your money but it just faded way.
“It was just a little bit big for them ... but it would have worked.
“There was no downside to it. We had the money, we had two or three locations to host matches, we had university grounds and training facilities.”
Relocating a team overseas should still be on the AFL agenda, Marron said.
“It’s the way to go, for somebody to pick up a team and run on our concept, it wouldn’t even have to be on a full-time basis, you could play 10 games a year over there,” he said.
“The TV rights back to Australia would be massive, the TV rights in America would be massive.
“These days they are bringing Americans to Australia to play AFL football, we planned to introduce it and build it up and recruit a few local people.
“It wasn’t a lot different to what happened in Sydney or Brisbane, they built it up and did a good job and we were going to do the same.”
Port mid endorses Carr – but admits it came as a ‘surprise’
Port Adelaide young gun Jackson Mead says the news Josh Carr might soon be announced as the club’s next coach was ‘a bit of a surprise’. But he only had good things to say.
Fagan tells AFL bosses how it is – and now they’re listening
Tension between the 18 clubs and AFL House was sky high at the end of last season. Now, after premiership Chris Fagan delivered a scathing assessment, the league is changing.