127 John Quayle The Man Who Revolutionised Rugby League

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Hi, I'm Mark Boris and this is Straight Talk.

You're kidding.

You fucking liar, mate.

John Quayle, welcome to Straight Talk, mate.

Thank you very much.

I want to just jump into your period as a rugby league administrator.

When I started in 83, the league was broken. It was considered not a very good sport. We

were totally down on crowds and image. So it was a matter of making changes. Great changes.

There's some wonderful stories on the way through, if you want them, with Dan and Kerry.

I would like to hear some of these.

I'm going to forget the words.

No.

I'm sorry, John. We'll see you in court.

That was by far my favourite rugby league promotion ever, ever.

How did you get Tina Turner to agree to do that?

Well...

John Quayle.

Quayle is otherwise known and a good friend of mine.

Welcome to Straight Talk.

Thank you very much.

I'm really happy and excited that you are sitting in that chair opposite me, because

I'm going to talk about some footy stuff that most listeners are probably too young to have

even known about. But I want to say first and foremost, congratulations. You're a main

life member of the Roosters. I don't understand why it's taken so bloody long. And I did say

that to Nick before it was even put up to the board. What about Quayle?

But I'm so happy that the club has recognised John Quayle for what he's done for our club

over a long, long period of time. So congratulations, mate.

Thank you. Well, it's where it all started for me.

Can you talk about that? Tell us where it started.

Just, you know, even though, you know, my career was in country, in Group 4, in the

old Group 4 in Tamworth, where in those days you were looked at as a... in the Rep.

Juniors and under 17s and 18s. And in those days you got a letter. And I got a letter

from the Roosters to say, would you like to come down and have a trial? And that was the

ultimate prize.

What year? What period were you talking about?

That was 1967. And you carried that letter around forever because that was... you were

invited. And I came down and in those days things were totally different. But meeting

the people...

The football people of the Roosters, even back then, they did it so well because not

only was I fortunate that the coach was Jack Gibson...

Helps.

But you met the great guys of the past. And the Ray Steers and the Dickie Duns, the guys

that had won three premierships back in all those times. And they were all part of it.

And so it didn't take long for me to just love it. I couldn't wait to get here. Even

though I hated Sydney, I didn't know anything about it. I'd never been on a bus.

We trained at the old Sydney sports ground. I'll never forget it. And I had to get there.

Which is a current...

Which is now the Allianz Stadium.

Right now it's the Allianz Stadium. But it was... there was a hill there and it was just

an old school stadium.

It was an old athletic ground. But it was the home of the Roosters. Other than Match

of the Days when you got to go to the cricket ground. So, you know, those early days for

me was just... loved every minute of it. And I was fortunate, you know...

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, just as a young footballer, to be given an opportunity to learn a new career.

And that's what I always acknowledge so much. Because at that stage, the Roosters were building

a new club. And it was from the...

A new league's club.

A new league's club. And they had original old... As you know, the clubs were set up

in the 60s for the propagation of rugby league. And the Roosters had... Their home was the

old Surrey Hotel in Oxford Street. A rotten old pub.

It was going to be knocked down eventually. And so Bunny Riley and I started the same

week in 1968. And we started at the Surrey. We were taught everything from cleaning the

toilets to being on the door and to learning the bar. And then we moved across to the new

club and we were given an opportunity then to say the industry was starting to grow.

Wasn't just poker machines.

It was entertainment. And to be given that opportunity, as I was at the Roosters, was

just wonderful. And I... Even though the league had a 13 import rule back in those

days, because they started implementing rules to stop St George after 11 great premierships.

In the 60s.

In the 60s. And so it was a 13 import rule and...

Which meant what?

Which meant each clubber could only have 13.

Players outside its area. Other than that, it was... Had to be developed within.

Is that a reason why Kevin Ryan, for example, left St George and went off to the Bulldogs?

Yeah, yes.

In those days, the Berries?

Those... That's exactly right.

Wow.

And admittedly, no different today. If you first off... Once you knew you were going

to be given that option of saying... Being told by the club, no different today, we

don't think you're going to make it. And you were offered another club, which I was

fortunate at that time. Donnie Ferner was the coach. We'd got to the grand final in

1972. And, you know, we had a pretty good team of players from outside. And Arthur and,

you know, Cootie and Johnny Brass and everyone that the Roosters were, again, took that role

once the Tutty case, which was... Back in those days, everyone had a contract. You couldn't

get out of that unless the club released it.

This is the Dennis Tutty case.

Yeah. And Dennis Tutty took the league to court about it and won. So it was open slather

for everyone then, which was a big decision.

What period is that? That's mid-70s?

That's 1970.

70.

Yeah.

And then you went back to... You went to Parramatta.

I went to Parramatta, but conditional. Because when Don Ferner had said to me, look, you've

got a better opportunity there, I'll be quite honest with you. You've got Ron Coot, you've

got everyone in front of you. You've got... You've got... You've got... You've got... You've

got...

You've got...

Take it.

And plus, I was given a three-year contract for a lot of money in those days. But the

club said to me, well, as long as your football doesn't interfere with your job, you can stay

here and continue your career. So I was the only footballer ever of that era to play with

another club.

Another football club.

Another football club.

Work for the league's club.

Work for the league's club.

You weren't quite... Maybe you were in administration at that point?

No, I was just learning the trade.

You're just learning...

Yeah.

Whatever they asked you to do.

Yeah.

Peel glasses or whatever it is.

Exactly right.

Oh, you want to go to Tooth Spurry for a month.

First there.

You want to go out to Penfolds at St Peter's.

Wash barrels.

I loved every minute of all of that.

And then, you know, we had a relationship with the Sydney Tech at that time.

They were teaching people the industry, you know, the early parts of accountancy,

stock control, all the little things that went in those days

was running a particular club.

And I was happy to do all of that.

And it was a challenge to go to Parramatta in those days because, you know,

I had to go all the way up Parramatta Road to training three nights a week

and then weekends.

But, you know, my greatest regret about that was missing, I thought,

the great team of the 70s, you know, those wonderful premierships under Jack.

And when Jack came back to the Roosters, he brought Bunny back and he said to me,

well, you want to come back?

But I had a contract and I was happy to do what I was doing.

So, yes, I came back to the – but I stayed at the Roosters from that time

and then continued my career right through until I retired.

And then I became assistant manager of the club.

And in those days we were uniting the football club as well as the one as you are today.

And so I was very much a part of that and loved every minute of it.

I want to just jump in.

To your period as a rugby league administrator,

I noticed you saw Willie Mason walking out of the studios

and you said to Willie, I probably cited you a few times in your day.

Can we just talk about your administration period in your business life?

What was that?

What was your role and what were you doing?

Well, it was a massive change in league back then.

We'd gone through the Royal Commission.

The league –

It was broke.

It was considered not a very good sport.

We were totally down on crowds and image.

And so I was encouraged to apply for the job at that stage,

general manager of the New South Wales Rugby League.

Because if I just stop you there, John,

because we had Queensland Rugby League and New South Wales Rugby League

and we had country rugby league, which in those days was quite big.

Yes.

Very big.

They're the three entities.

Was there an overarching entity?

They were just starting to set up, the Australian Rugby League.

Right.

As a – all those organizations were virtually amateur back then.

Administrators who were appointed to president, secretary.

And it was run as an amateur sport until such time as the league started to change.

And so I was fortunate to get the job.

At New South Wales?

At the New South Wales Rugby League.

There were some 52 applicants.

I had some very good references.

You know, I was friends with Kerry Packer at the time.

And Kerry said, you're mad.

He said, no, you're just putting me on as a referee.

He said, because as soon as anyone sees my name down there, they'll brush you.

But I was able to – I was successful in getting that job.

And then it was – the league had gone.

And organised through a consultancy company a review of the game.

And it was called the W.D. Scott Report, which virtually laid everything out on the table.

Yes, you've got clubs insolvent.

Yes, you're insolvent.

Yes, you have no image.

Yes, your tribunal system is antiquated.

So it was a matter of making the change.

But the biggest change first up was the league was run by what was called a general committee.

It was a committee of 42 people, nominees from each of the clubs, the country rugby league and vice presidents.

So one of the recommendations was to become incorporated.

And it was a general committee of 16.

And out of that 16, there were a number of them that was considered the cartel.

So those cartels –

Like someone like Arco?

Oh, I wouldn't nominate names.

You could say those particular people because Ken became my chairman.

And we couldn't have made the changes without him.

So all those things people were opposed to.

The league itself was opposed to.

But we were able to become incorporated with the support of every – of the main key people.

And that virtually gave us the opportunity to be credible, to expose, to have a balance sheet and tell the world what we were going to do.

And make changes.

And make great changes.

So it went forward.

It went from a general committee of 16 to a board of nine, which had two independent directors on it.

The first two directors that I wanted on it were Nick Whitlam, who ran at that stage the state bank.

Yeah, he'd just been – the state bank had just become the state bank because it used to be the rural bank.

That's exactly right.

And Kerry Packer.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

And both of them agreed.

And we'll never forget it because they – you know, we – they had to be interviewed.

They had to be interviewed in a way with the board members, which included Ken Arthurson and Tom Bellew.

And they came into Phillips Street, massive publicity.

And Kerry was typical Kerry.

He virtually told the new board how to run the game, that the board – the game was no good and this is what you get to do, fix it up.

So he rang me after it, you know, when he'd left.

And he said – I'm going to forget the words.

He said,

Son, I can handle you and I can handle your chairman, but anyone else I can't.

You don't need me on there, but I'll give you all the support you want.

And so that's – and I went and found a wonderful guy called Alan David, David Holdings at the time, and Graham Lovett, who was a great sports marketer and tennis, a tennis international.

And they became the two outside members of the league.

So then it was a matter of change.

What's the priorities?

What was on your hit list?

Well, the hit list first up was to try and get some money because we had no money.

As you would recall from an interview with you and I in the early – in the mid – early 80s, when you – I'll never forget that meeting when you said, look, you know, I can help you out here financially and you should invest in this and you should do this.

And my words were saying, Mark, I'd love to, but I don't have any money.

And I've got to say.

We're not ready to do any of that.

We've got to get ourselves sorted out.

And we had six of our clubs in Sullivan.

People don't remember back then.

At that time when I started in 83, the league had taken three clubs out.

People forget about it.

Newtown naturally went down itself financially.

But then the league had taken out Cronulla and Western Suburbs.

Out of the league.

Was that – couldn't it have been because they didn't have lease clubs to support them?

No, they wanted – because everyone was going broke.

The cartel's words were, oh, less teams, better players for me.

We don't need them.

They're no value.

There was no actual thinking of the long-term spread of the game.

It was all, let's look after it inside.

And it was predominantly Newcastle – New South Wales.

They'd just brought Canberra into the competition.

And it was a sad time.

So, you know, Newtown we couldn't save.

We should have.

And we did.

And, again, one of my great regrets because John Singleton was virtually controlling Newcastle –

Newtown.

Newtown.

And the first – next expansion place was going to be Campbelltown.

And so John Marsden was a solicitor at Campbelltown, great rugby league servant, ran the junior league.

So they came in on grand final day.

Never forget it.

One of my first big jobs.

Grand final day, 83.

And we agreed.

And we agreed to have the Campbelltown Jets.

John would fund it as long as the league supported it.

We'd play at Campbelltown.

Shook hands in the boardroom of the league.

Two days later, John Marsden rung me.

He said, no.

He said, it's not a good image for us to go with Newtown.

We've got to go it alone.

And we're confident we'll go on our own in the next couple of years.

But we as a league at that time should have said, Campbelltown Jets, based at Campbelltown,

best option.

But again, we didn't have the support.

We didn't have any money.

And it failed.

It didn't happen.

Cronulla got back into the competition through emotion.

People – they had some good people out there at the time, some political support.

And they had people like Jack Gibson, Ronnie Massey, and Monty Porter.

And Monty became the leader of getting Cronulla back in.

And then West took the lead.

And we had a whole year of legal argument, which the league lost.

And that was a great decision for me because it taught me the history of the game.

And you didn't need to take a team out.

These guys had been there since 1908.

Especially Western Suburbs.

Especially Western Suburbs.

The Magpies.

Exactly right.

And so, you know, the court, you know, really said to people like myself and the new board,

hey, we want everyone that we can involved in this.

Let's keep everyone together.

Let's get everyone financially secure.

And then we maybe can expand the game.

So the first priority was to try and get finance into the game.

As in revenue or borrowing?

Revenue.

Well, we had no asset to borrow.

Yep.

And we had – it was a name.

And we had the New South Wales Leagues Club at Phillips Street,

which everyone said, well, let's put it up as guaranteed.

But no one was – we weren't experienced in the early 80s to do all that.

And that was sad.

So first priority was corporation, finance, credibility.

When the court ruled that West could come back into the league,

Newtown, as I said, sadly couldn't.

So that then set the standard for what the competition would be.

So let's try and get the six of the clubs insolvent.

That were insolvent to say, okay, we won't ever take you out of the league

unless you can't – unless you take yourself out.

And the only way you'll take yourself out is be broke.

And the clubs were coming to the league for money.

We had no money to give them.

And so that was a big challenge for the next decade really

because you think in 1982 the league brought Canberra into the competition,

the Raiders.

They were considered.

They were considered.

They were considered a joke for the seven years.

And then when their first grand final,

they became the most popular team around the nation, the Green Machine.

Wonderful team.

But in the first grand final, couldn't pay their players.

No.

Yeah.

And nor could Cronulla.

And that's why we then had the public response to this again.

And, you know, if you take a look back at Cronulla, the wonderful player,

the players that they had at the time, the Gavin Millers and Steve Rogers and all them,

they took about 40 cents in the dollar.

And the Raiders, they had to save the Raiders fund.

It was led by a number of very prominent politicians at the time,

which was wonderful.

And the public supported them.

But here they were, grand finalists.

And we thought then, okay, to protect them from themselves, the clubs,

that's what the thought was the AFL model of the salary cap and the draft.

And we knew we were expanding.

And we knew that that was going to cost a lot of money.

So we implemented the two of them.

Salary cap against the wishes of a lot of people.

When I say a lot of people, a lot of the wealthy clubs.

Because at the time, you're wealthy.

And if you call back to that, Pete, we had six clubs running,

being in the grand final every year for that period of time.

So but then it was supported and we lost the draft because, as the AFL who supported us always said,

this is always going to be a restraint of trade.

What you've got to have it to make it work is the clubs have got to support it.

The clubs naturally, like so many of them back then, would give you a lip service.

Yes, we'll support it, but go out and not want it because every coach

in those days wanted to buy whoever he wanted.

So the draft failed, which was sad because the salary cap and the draft

in the AFL was really a good way of getting development and equaling the competition.

But I think as we see today in the game, the amount of money that has turned over,

the salary cap, even though it's criticized by a lot of people, it's still kept the competition pretty even.

You can't, you know, people say, we all say today, well, can Penrith win four?

Yes, they can.

But they've lost a lot of players, no different to the Roosters, no different to the great clubs.

You can't keep them all.

But the idea of all of that was to hopefully,

encourage the clubs to develop and then let the certain players go to other clubs, which evens it up.

Let the market decide it.

Well, that's how it's worked, even though I think, will it remain with the amount of money in the game today?

Don't know.

I suppose the league could look at it again if you've got, now that everything is so professional,

if you opened it up, would clubs go broke again?

Would the desire and the player market?

Just be, you know, would you go back to having two or three of the wealthy clubs controlling the competition?

That might be true, but I don't think clubs go broke, because I think clubs are better managed today than they ever have been in the past.

They are at the moment, but all of a sudden, if you get boards in there that think that let's go and buy,

Blah, blah, yeah, yeah.

Let's go and buy and pay over the odds, and all of a sudden their league's club mightn't be working and they might be running last, and the fans aren't there, yes.

Do you want that risk?

For me, no.

No, you want a competitive sporting competition.

Every year.

Every year.

Yeah.

And you want to hopefully think that every year you're all starting, every club is starting off with the opportunity to win.

So, John, you were, those were sort of benign years in some respects.

I know there was problems you had to get over and things you had to solve and the changes you had to make, but really it was sort of about, I think it was 95, 96.

When the war started, the Super League war.

Yeah, well, it did.

Your career gets pretty interesting during this period.

Can we talk, don't we?

Yeah, just before that though, Mark, was the success of the game in relation to expansion.

And again, the...

Because you need success in order for the war to start.

Oh, exactly right.

Because it becomes a plum.

Exactly right.

And we always knew when we were starting to become credible, we were starting to get good television.

We were starting to get good sponsorship.

And we were starting to get support.

So, bringing teams like the Broncos and Newcastle into the competition gave it a whole new vibe in that particular time.

And we were getting the club solvent.

They realised that the league wasn't going to prop them up, so get your act together.

More professional boards run as the boardroom in a professional way.

And so, that expansion was the next big thing for the game to change.

Because that's then when the game said, okay, we become the Australian Rugby League.

So, I became Chief Executive of the New South Wales and Australian League.

On the basis, we were expanding, not only from a competition, but internationally.

The game was going very well in the countries that we played in.

Television was so good.

The marketing of the game was so good.

And pay television was about to arrive in Australia.

And when I look back and we often say to ourselves, Ken and I, what would we have done better?

We had two major players because, as you know, three years before that, the industry went down, the television industry.

Bond bought Kerry out.

Christopher Scace bought Seven.

Our television contract had gone from $4 million to $5 million.

So, it was a big deal.

$4 million to $15 million with the Lowy family, Channel 10.

And Frank, Lowy and the family said, this industry is not for us.

We don't like it.

And they gave back our contract.

And Kerry gets Nine back.

Nine got the football back.

In the end, because we had no one else.

We had no one else.

No, because Ten didn't want it.

Ten didn't want it.

At that price.

And Channel 7.

And Christopher Scace's Channel 7's broke.

Yeah, yeah.

So, but Ten didn't want it at that price, obviously, because they probably would have taken it if it was cheaper.

Oh, anyone would.

Yeah, yeah.

But, you know, we always believed that the game, and typically Kerry, when he comes back, as you and I know, and you know well,

was, you know, his famous lines as he used against Bond and all those things, said to me,

geez, you've done good.

I used to pay you.

I thought I'd pay you about $8 million.

You're getting $15.

That's a good contract.

So in front of Ken and I, what do you think he did?

Tore it in half.

He said, bad luck, you won't be getting that anymore, and you've got no one else to give it to.

I'll give you another, I'll give you the eight again.

And Ken said, Ken said the famous words, and Kerry's, well, Kerry said, if you don't, if you don't like that, Arco, you can go and get F'd.

And Ken.

Said, no one tells me to get F'd, Kerry.

So I can tell you now, you're not getting the television, and you can go and get F'd.

And I'm thinking, oh, shit, Ken.

We have no one else.

We don't have seven.

We don't have 10.

The ABC couldn't afford us.

But, to the credit of Ken, who stuck solid in relation to the game, we continued to negotiate.

I was negotiating with Kerry's offside, Linton Taylor.

At the time.

And we had the television.

We had the figure up to $12 million.

And then finally, when I got them, both Ken and Kerry together again, and said, let's shake hands on it.

He said to me, well, you're not getting what you negotiated.

I said, yes, we are.

No, you're not.

But Kerry played the big bluff, as you and I know.

And we signed a deal with Channel 9.

So Channel 9 had it back, the television.

What are you talking about now?

Which year?

I ran it out.

This was.

This would have been 93.

93.

Yeah.

Right.

So could you just stop me there for a second.

Because what you've done as an administrator, and administrators tend to be overlooked a lot.

But as an administrator, you and I go with the board, have gone about and made the game more shiny, more interesting,

helped brought in new clubs, given a greater distribution, Newcastle, et cetera.

The other two clubs.

Were in a position where they're not going to.

Sorry, the other two TV stations are in a position where they're not going to bid.

10 because of the reasons you just mentioned, through the Lowy family, and seven were stuffed.

Because Skace ran them into the ground.

Nine had done a deal.

And it was reasonable money.

But all of a sudden, if I'm Murdoch, I'm sitting there thinking, pay for you is coming.

I want to be paid for you.

I'm thinking to myself, you know what, there's a bit of a state of disarray here.

These blokes have lost their shit.

I'll be thinking to myself, here's an opportunity.

Do you reckon that was what they were thinking?

Not at that stage, because.

Not in 94.

Not in 93.

Not in 93, right.

Because the introduction of pay television across Australia was going to be run.

It was called PMT, Packer, Murdoch, and Telstra.

And it'll be a three-way deal.

The Keating government said at the time, no, we've got to have competition.

That's when we all saw Kerry with the satellite.

Rupert had the wires.

We dug up every footpath and put our wire in for pay television.

Because then the Murdoch family pulled out of PMT.

So straight away, that's when Rupert would have thought, and with what was happening in America,

uh-uh, I want pay television in Australia.

And the sad part about it, which came out in the court case so many times,

we didn't have anyone else, bar nine.

Murdoch wasn't around at this stage.

We had no one else to bid for the rights.

So yes, we took nine, and we signed a contract.

And in that contract, which was proven in the court case,

even back when the league did the television contracts in the 70s,

if pay television arrives in Australia, the free-to-air broadcaster will have the first right.

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So he baked in his agreements, first right of refusal.

They were always in our Channel 10 contracts the whole time through.

Right.

But we were also very loyal because we had no one else.

And with respect to Channel 9, they were a pretty good sport and broadcaster.

Yeah, they were.

And still are.

And.

But the two families were apart, two bullies as we know.

Yeah.

And Rupert in that situation had just got the NFL rights off American Broadcasting Corporation.

And he wanted sport.

And he knew he made it quite clear in all our discussions.

In all of that, his executives knew that the thing would sell pay television was sport.

But they both wanted.

But we look back on it today and say, well, okay.

We have a contract, as Kerry's famous words to the clubs was, you know, back in that time.

If you want to sell your game, I'll buy it.

But don't sell it to a media organisation.

Keep it as your own.

You know, we'd gone through World Series cricket.

Did all that.

And all those things happened.

But we didn't.

We didn't realise the fight would.

Come from Murdoch on the basis of the introduction of Super League, which was, people say, was

about football.

It was all about product for pay television.

Yeah, content.

The whole court case.

And that was a terrible time for all of us.

How did it start?

Like, what was the first shot that got fired for Super League?

Well, the first shot, as far as I'm concerned, people can dispute it on the other side.

But my relationships with the people from news at the time.

We were just finishing in 1995 the sponsorship of Winfield.

Government had wiped out cigarettes, rightfully so.

And we, Graham Lovett, who was a consultant to News Limited and also on our board,

Graham and I were negotiating with News Limited to take the sponsorship.

Travel, Ansett, they had the airline, Travel Scene and somebody else.

And we did the deal.

Graham Lovett rang me from those days, no mobile phones, but got through and said, the eagle

has landed.

We did the deal for sponsorship for $50 million for five years to take over from Winfield

for the News Limited organisation, which included Ansett.

With the expansion, we were going to go with Ansett for all the airlines, all the flights.

And as it's...

Said at that time, well, why sponsor the game for $50 million when we can own it for

less than that?

That's were the words that started.

Everyone claims credit for that.

Naturally, I believe that it was an executive of News Limited who made that decision at

the time.

Can you reveal who?

His name was David Smith, as far as I recall.

He made the decision?

He made the suggestion, though.

He made the decision to News Limited.

We can buy this game.

We can own this game rather than sponsor it for $50 million.

And do you think he had in his mind at that time buying the game was actually buying players?

And buying pay television product.

Yeah.

And to do that, pay the players an amount of money, get the players and referees and

the clubs, the number of...

We only need 10 clubs.

The News Limited model was 10.

It was going to be wipe out the New South Wales.

Clubs and make it 10, maximum 12, which was we'd all love as a model back then.

But our difference was we wanted to expand the game.

We had made the decision back then once we'd expanded with Newcastle and Brisbane, then

to expand to 20.

And that was Auckland, another team in Brisbane, North Queensland and Perth.

That decision was made 30 years ago.

That was for us to follow the AFL model and be a national game.

That was our plan.

News Limited's plan was to make money.

Less teams would be better quality.

And that was the difference in that model from as far as sport is concerned in my eyes.

So that fight was enormous, as we all know, and changed so many of the fabrics of the game.

We were three years in the court.

And, you know, we, the game under Justice Birchess was proven, as I always knew, the

loyalties and traditions of the game of sport was very important.

And he believed in what we fought for was right.

And the game should not have been taken over by media organisation for the use of television.

So we won that.

And then we kept trying to negotiate.

Because Ken Cahill...

Ken Cahill, who was head of News Australia, always, you know, kept, you know...

There's some wonderful stories on the way through, if you want them, with Ken and Kerry.

I would like to hear some of these.

Which, you know, said that we're going to appeal.

News Corp.

News Corp.

And, you know, every one of us, I suppose, we all said, well, look, we've won what we set out to win.

To say we can run a competition and it can be run by the ARL.

And it can be run on a national basis and not be reduced.

Because we had loyalty to the people.

Our clubs in, you know, we'd saved Cronulla.

We'd saved West 15 years prior to it.

That loyalty of original clubs was there.

We believed, and so did the Nine Network, more clubs, more games on television.

Not less teams with less games on television.

All those arguments were there.

And can be debated today what's best.

Sometimes it amuses me when I hear now that we're going to go to 20 teams.

More television games because we know how much it's worth.

So we were close on so many occasions.

It's interesting that Bob Musket was the general manager of News Limits.

Ken Cowley was managing director.

And so Bob and I used to set up meetings for Ken Cowley and Ken Arthurson.

We'd set them up at the...

ASTRA, Rupert's apartment in Macquarie Street.

Secretly, no one ever knew about them.

The ASTOR.

The ASTOR.

Where I used to live.

I know you live...

You have the penthouse there still today.

And we'd set up the meetings and we'd agree.

The two chairmen would agree.

We'd go back.

And we were so close on this one occasion.

And Ken Cowley said, OK, I'll go to Kerry.

And which we were happy with because we had that loyalty.

We had the contract with Nine.

And we knew that that was pretty important to us.

And so the deal was to say, Ken Cowley was going to say to Kerry,

you're going to have free-to-air forever,

but we're taking the pay television rights.

So Ken Cowley said to me, I teed up the meeting with Kerry.

I said, do you want in?

He said, I'll go.

You know, he said, no, I think it's just best with Kerry and I at this stage, John.

And we were waiting back at Phillips Street because I really thought we were a chance.

And within ten minutes, I get a phone call from Ken Cowley

hoping that we're nearly there, John.

Ken says, I'm afraid, John, we're going to court.

Kerry's, I've gone in to Kerry.

He's told me to get F'd.

No one tells me to get F'd like that.

I didn't even get to discuss it.

So I'm sorry, John, we'll see you in court.

And Ken and I, we were, because it was becoming, we could not control the law.

So the game was being run by the law, by what's, you know,

not by what's on the field of play and all those things that we were sporting administrators,

you know, not television executives at the time.

So that was a time it was close.

It was just one particular discussion.

And I used to meet with Kerry every second night.

I'd get up to his office with his lawyers there and it was just, oh, we've got this one anyhow.

We're going to win anyhow.

You know, all those terrible things that at the time the two families of the two guys weren't together.

And it was a very sad time for the game in a lot of cases because,

it put the hold on expansion.

The cost of the whole thing, we could have done expansion for 10 years,

the legal costs of Super League.

But that's history.

Was it egos?

Sorry?

Was it egos?

Was it two big egos?

Oh, totally.

Totally.

And it was the egos of all of us.

To me, I always thought, you know, to me, the way Kerry smiled and James Packer and I,

as you know, debated it a lot of times after that.

In many cases, it was a game of poker for Kerry against another media, two media barons that,

you know, and we couldn't get out of it other than agreement because the lawyers had gone,

we'd gone too far with the law of both sides.

Like it just pissed me off every day in court because I'd get in there and I'd add up because

I used to say to everyone, News Limited had got a rugby team, they had 15 lawyers and we had 13.

And you look at the representatives and I used to add it up, you know, every day and just say.

Tens of thousands, easy.

Oh, Jesus.

Easy tens of thousands of dollars each.

And then I'd, you know, you'd get the advice from the lawyers.

Now, John, do you think you could pay my check?

And I used to just think to myself, what are we doing here?

Paying all this money out, you know,

which the argument was not going to happen.

It was not about the game of league.

It wasn't to say we were corrupt.

We were no good.

We weren't doing anything.

The game was flying, as you know, at that time.

And, you know, Tina was just bringing in a new audience, Tina Turner and that sort of stuff.

So did you introduce a Tina Turner program during that period?

Oh, Tina started in 89.

89.

Oh, yeah.

Can we just go to the, because like for me that was one of,

that was by far my favourite.

My favourite period in rugby league promotion ever, ever, the Tina Turner.

How did you get Tina Turner to agree to do that?

Well, it's why it's a wonderful story.

And someone, you know, as an entrepreneur like you and a marketer like you

would have understood that, what it meant.

Cut through.

Yeah.

And we, you know, we were expanding.

We were doing so well on television.

But our agency, Hertz Warpile, you know, done the research and said,

you're a man's sport, you're played by men, you're watched by men.

Predominantly men that is 50 years and plus.

So a big theme in advertising circles.

How are we going to change this?

We'd done very good commercials previously.

And a young executive in Hertz Warpile said,

I heard a song sung by, it was Tina Turner.

And people don't realise it was What You See Is What You Get.

Yeah.

It was the first commercial.

And so the agency set up a number of young Australians to try and sing

What You See Is What You Get.

As a cover.

As a cover.

And it wasn't working.

Did you say it's not working?

I mean, who was saying it?

No, the agency first.

I'd like to claim all the credit, but not at this stage.

And then it was suggested Tina is very much popular in Australia.

Have we ever thought about getting Tina?

So everyone said, no, you won't get Tina.

And yes, I'll claim credit for saying, well, why?

My assistant at the time, Mickey Braithwaite, Roger Davies,

Davies, Manny Sherbert, Mickey knew Roger, gets Roger's number.

We ring, Hertz Warpile ring Roger.

Roger was from Melbourne.

No, that wouldn't be something that would have happened, I wouldn't think,

because he's turning Tina.

He's turning Tina around as the international artist after a previous time.

But then he called and said, well, I'm coming to Melbourne to see my mother

and see the Boxing Day test.

I'll call in.

He called in.

Hertz Warpile and I had lunch with Roger.

I told him the spiel, told him we had no money.

He said, I've done enough research.

You've got some money.

You've got a cigarette company.

And within five days,

four days after Christmas it was, Roger rings and says,

if you want to do this, you only have one day to film in London

and we could give it a go when I see what you're going to do.

And we put it together.

Hertz Warpile put it together in virtually three weeks with a script.

Jim Warpile and I got on a plane to London.

I took footballs.

Who did you take?

Sorry?

Who did you take?

No one.

And at that stage, but I'd arranged,

because the agency said you've got to have a good-looking footballer.

A player, yeah.

A player.

You've got to have players in this.

So here we are in Sydney.

But it was fortunate, Andrew Eddinghausen,

who was the best-looking footballer at the time, playing in London.

So I ring Andrew in those days because we were, you know,

he was part of our marketing program all the way through.

And Andrew said,

fine, John, you know, when are we going to do this?

So we'd arranged that we have a Wednesday in London

in the old dressing rooms of Fulham.

And Jim and I are over there.

He had a production company to do it all.

And I had a friend, Gavin Miller, you know.

Yes.

Gavin worked at the Roosters and we were good friends.

And I rung Gavin in London.

He was playing over there as well.

I said, look, you've got to do me.

Do me a favour here.

This is secretive, but I've...

And he said, I'll do whatever you want me to do.

I said, you've got to get Andrew Eddinghausen to London

on Wednesday the 10th of January.

What for?

It doesn't matter, but that's what you've got to do.

That's easy.

I'll do that.

So Jim and I are on the plane.

You know, I get to London, get to the hotel.

There's a message from Gavin.

And I ring Gavin.

Mate, we've got a bit of a problem.

I said, Gavin, there's no...

There can't be a problem.

I only ask you to do one thing.

Get Andrew Eddinghausen to London.

He said, well, the game on Saturday was snowed out.

They've transferred the game that Andrew's playing with

to Wednesday and they won't release him.

But he said, don't worry.

Don't worry.

He said, you know me.

You taught me how to fix things.

I said, how have you fixed it?

He said, I've got you two.

Two players.

I said, who are they?

He said, me and Cliffy Lyons.

So I've gone from the best-looking footballer to...

They don't mind me saying it.

They weren't that good-looking.

Busted.

They weren't that good-looking.

And when I was telling Tina on the night before,

or the day before, we knew we only had a day to do it,

and I'm telling her how good...

I'm showing her the old VHS tapes, her and Roger,

and I'm saying how good-looking...

how good-looking they were, but how tough they were.

They didn't use padding or anything like that.

And they're big and they're strong and, you know.

And when Tina...

When Gavin and Cliffy were in the dressing room,

and I still hadn't told them, I said, whatever you do,

no-one knows about this.

I'm trusting the two of you to keep this confidentially,

which they did.

And I said, we're going to do a commercial for the game

of rugby league back in Australia.

Well, that's all right.

What's wrong with that?

Yeah.

You can...

That's not a problem.

You can tell us about that.

And I said, yes, but you're going to be working with someone

that's pretty secretive.

So within a little while, I bring Tina into the dressing room

and she's...

It was so cold.

It was minus six.

She had a beautiful big fur coat on, fur hat,

and she's walked in.

Well, Cliffy couldn't talk.

Didn't talk again the whole time.

Tina and Gavin, they were both...

But Tina...

Tina was so good with them.

You know?

She gave them a hug and said, we're going to work together

and all this sort of thing.

And she quietly says, you know, I tell the story.

She said to me when we were filming at one stage, she said,

you did say to me they were good looking.

She said, I hate to see the ones you left behind.

But Tina was such a professional.

Why do you think it worked so well, that whole marketing program?

Oh, just the music because what you see is what you get.

Gave us the opportunity to take a picture.

To take the football jumpers off them.

Put them with children.

Put them on the beach.

A whole different scene.

And it virtually turned the players from a footballer

into a sexy looking guy without his shirt on.

And when you looked at Andrew or a lot of the players at the time like that,

it changed an image.

And that's what it achieved in that first year.

And we were only ever going to do one commercial.

That was going to be it.

Because I nearly got the sack over it because it was kept secret.

Certain clubs wanted to know how much it cost.

We could never have done that without Winfield as the major sponsor.

And I didn't tell the board a lot of things.

I only told Ken, to his credit, Ken Arthurson and Tom Bellew

who I kept their confidence in all of that.

And we kept it secret right out to here.

And we launched it.

And, you know, it became just a national.

Iconic.

Iconic straight away.

So it was very good for Tina too.

And Roger then rung at the start of it.

It was May the next year.

And he rung and said, look, Tina's going to do a new song on the album

at the end of the year.

It hasn't even been produced yet.

And I think it's been written for sport.

And maybe you and John better get over here.

And have a look at it.

Hear it.

And I said to Jim Walpole, no, no, Jim, no.

We're only one year.

He said, Roger had sent over a demo of the song.

The song was simply the best.

And the rest is history.

For someone who was going to get the sack,

a few of my board members said you better get,

when I told them it was State of Origin night in Brisbane,

Ken Arthurson got them together and said, John,

we've got a chance of doing Tina again.

And they all naturally said, get him on a plane and get over there.

So Jim Walpole and I went to America, met with Tina and Roger.

We signed the rights to Simply the Best for the Southern Hemisphere

for the next five years with the support of Winfield.

And that anthem was written for sport, Simply the Best.

So it was a wonderful thing how it all happened.

You probably, it never could, maybe not happen,

unless all of a sudden Taylor Swift said,

gee, I'd love to do a rugby league commercial or something.

How does John Quayle, I mean, that's why I wanted to interview you,

because being an administrator is one thing,

but there's an enormous amount of vision in these things.

I mean, apart from being able to navigate yourself through the war,

the Super League war, that's a navigation process.

That's not being an administrator.

That's a navigation process because you've got warring parties,

you've got big egos, you're sort of sitting in the middle of these things

and you're trying all the time to set aside even your own preferences

to make sure that you get an outcome for the game.

That's one.

Then on the other side of it, you're doing, as an administrator,

you're coming up with ways to promote a game that's never been promoted.

No one would have ever thought about this process before or, in fact,

even though the advertising agency had come up with the idea,

no one had ever really would have ever thought about it.

They thought, this is possible.

But you were prepared to prosecute this until you got there.

Where's that stuff come from?

There's a kid from the bush.

I think a lot of it came from the Roosters.

I think my training.

Yeah?

I really do because they were an innovative club.

In those days, entertainment was, Ike and Tina Turner came to St George's League.

I saw her there.

I saw them there.

Years previously, we had the big acts come to all the clubs

and it was taking a punt on things like that.

You know, it was like, oh, we've got the new artists, you know,

John English and Marcel Hines.

They've just done Superstar.

We would like to do a club show.

Good.

Come out.

Let's do it.

I think it was wanting to be innovative and wanting to make change.

But you were risk-taking naturally.

Oh, yes.

I was, yeah, very much so because I was very fortunate I had Ken Arthurson.

Yeah.

To back you.

To back me.

Yeah.

If you didn't have that, if you didn't have your chairman

and one other member of the board, you know, you'd have said,

how much is it?

No way are we going to bring a black American grandmother

to promote the game of rugby league.

What's the matter with him?

Yeah.

You had to take a punt, Mark.

You had to.

Well, it's more than a punt.

But it's a measure of risk.

Well, it's a risk.

It was a risk.

But the good thing about Ken was, the thing, I'd made lots of mistakes too,

you know, and the good thing about him, he said,

he always used to say to me, are you sure, mate?

Are you sure this is good?

I said, Ken, if it doesn't work, we'll change it.

Yeah.

Don't worry.

If it doesn't work, and it was very easy for the things that didn't work to stop

because you didn't worry about, oh, I made this decision, I've got to stick with it.

No, it ain't working.

Stop it.

Because, again, we had not only the agency but public supporting the things

that we were doing.

Expansion was big.

You know, getting clubs, the players getting more money.

Everything was going pretty good.

And television was going tremendous.

And here we are on the verge of expanding the game across the nation because the Raiders,

Canberra Raiders had won the premiership and they were so popular and all that sort of stuff.

It just gave you the confidence to say, you know, I listen to certain people still today,

oh, we can't expand the competition, we haven't got enough of good players.

That's the same argument.

I went through 30.

If we hadn't have done that, you wouldn't have seen North Queensland.

It would have been a New South Wales competition if we didn't go back to Newcastle where,

you know, Newcastle was a rugby league city.

Queensland is a rugby league city.

We've seen the success of the Dolphins.

But if the league had listened to a number of people with, when I say media and the people

that don't look to make that decision.

Commentaries.

Yes.

You'd never expanded.

You'd have never done.

If sports administrators, and I think today, you know, when I look at the Vegas exercise,

we took to America 30 years ago.

We didn't have Fox.

We didn't have any of that.

We didn't have the promotion.

But again, we had the same thoughts.

Let's get a greater audience.

Because our thoughts were, my thoughts were genuinely, more people not only watching,

more kids playing, more people long term.

And I got to say, in many cases, it was the AFL model.

They were going national.

Everyone said the Swans won't work here.

And they brought the Swans here in 1982.

Launched at the Opera House.

The great critics of everyone said, that'll be a five year wonder.

So if you're an administrator and worry about the negative side of the thing, I think you're

not a good administrator.

You fail.

And I think being able to take that opportunity, I was very fortunate.

But I couldn't have done it without a few people.

I couldn't have done it without a few big, good backers.

And that main backer was Ken Arthurson.

You know, I remember when Tino, when he, you know, he got a phone call from Rex Mossop

on the Monday morning before the Wednesday to launch it.

Mate, we've got to pull this.

We've got to pull this.

We'd kept it silent.

There was no social media till then.

He said, it's out, mate.

It's out.

And Rex was the first who said to Ken, you tell me, Arco, you're not going to use a black

American grandmother to promote the game.

Because if you are, that's all over for me.

So Ken said, mate, we're going to have to pull it.

We're going to have to pull it.

We can't do it.

It's out.

I said, Ken, we're ready to launch Wednesday night at the stadium.

And a couple of members of the board, the clubs were blowing up, how much is this costing?

And he called a board meeting.

And to his credit, a number of people in that time wanted it pulled.

Wanted it pulled.

I was talking to someone yesterday about you.

And you're just making me think about John Quayle.

He said to me, John is one of the most, he didn't necessarily say it in a good way, but

he wasn't saying it in a bad way either, most determined, stubborn people I've ever met.

And I was actually talking about the 2000 Olympics, your administration of the, during

the 2000 Olympics.

Determined and stubborn.

Yeah.

Now, it's very well for you to say, you went and saw Arco about, Ken Arthurson about bringing

Tina Turner.

How, okay, you're an administrator, but how important is that, those two characteristics

of John Quayle as to navigating us through Super League wars, bringing people like Tina

Turner, helping Australia put on a fantastic 2000 Olympics and all the other consultation

contracts that you've got post the 2000 Olympics with other countries?

How important has that characteristic, those two characteristics been for John Quayle?

And are you aware of it?

Are you purposely determined and stubborn?

No, no, I, you know, when you say something like that, I don't think that way.

I didn't think that way.

I didn't, I don't think.

I was stubborn.

Not stubborn, but you were a positive.

I was determined if I believed in it, and you knew it was right for the image of the

game, or in the long-term interest of the game.

I learnt that, how many cases I say, at the Roosters as being a foundation club and what

they went through years ago, like all the league, I learnt it in that court case when

the league took out Wests and Cronulla and Newtown, the loyalty of those clubs and what

that game meant.

And as long as you believe as administrator that it is in the interests of the league,

the interests of the game that you are responsible for at that time, that you are prepared

to make change as we were doing, you've got to go with it.

And I think I was like that.

I think I learnt, I learnt that from the Olympic movement as well.

You know, I'd run one sport, the game of rugby league.

I went into an organisation, 28 worldwide sports that were all the same.

But people like John Coates had taught me, we've got to make Australian sport change

because it's on a world stage.

And that's what we wanted to do back then.

We wanted to be on a world stage.

And I think as an administrator, if you're prepared to do that and back yourself, you'll

be all right.

So when I, I've known you for a long time, and today you're, you know, getting close

to 28-0, not far off, but I've known you, something that I've always known about you,

or I've always observed about you, is something about the way you look at people.

So he, for those people who can't really see, but the cameras are on him, but he's got these

steely blue eyes and they, when you're prosecuting a proposition or an idea, I can see it's more

than belief.

I can see it's more than belief in your thing.

Kweli has this sort of strength of character that he's nearly looking through me when he's

telling me the story.

Because you were just reliving the story, but it was completely real in your mind as

you were telling me.

I can see it.

You have this look about you, mate, like, which sort of betrays you a little bit, but

it's nearly like, don't cross this bloke.

Listen to what he's got to say, because if he thinks it's going to happen and it should

happen, as you say, you believe it, it's going to happen.

That's how I always felt, ever since I met you.

It's like, you know, we might be having a casual drink, blah, blah, blah.

We could be sitting in someone's ranch in California.

But you were like that then.

You were always like that.

I mean, and I just was remembering it then as you were talking to me, even though there's

a few extra years on you, you still got it.

You still got that look.

You're not bad at it yourself, Mr. Boris.

I'm the bad one?

I've watched you on television a lot.

But, mate, I'm the interviewer here, so.

But how is it you keep that going?

Like, where do you get the energy from that at 78, mate?

No, no, we're near 78.

You're kidding.

You fucking lying, mate.

No, I'm not that age, but I'm getting there.

But it doesn't matter.

Doesn't matter.

Where do you get that energy from, that strength?

Oh, look, I think I go back to everything that started for me.

I was fortunate that my father was an Anglican minister.

I grew up in a very, you know, wonderful family like that.

I was taught things, the honesty of life and be good to people and all those sort of things.

And I think, again, I put a lot of it back to my move to Sydney and meeting a whole new

group of people that were wonderful rugby league people, genuine people, and understood

what they went through in those early days of our great game.

But then I...

But then I was charged with a responsibility then of protecting that game during my time,

but making it better.

And I had a lot of people around me that would say go for it.

There are certainly a lot of people that said don't.

That's what I mean.

Don't.

But again, as I'm saying, I was very...

I was always confident if I believed in it.

And I knew it could make the game at that time better.

Why not?

And who would John Quayle give a shout out to then today?

Going right back and forward to now, but who would John Quayle give a shout out to and

say, look, thanks for your...

I don't want to use the word mentorship, but like thanks for your help or your advice or

your kick up the ass, whatever it is.

Yeah, well, coming to Sydney, there was no doubt about meeting Jack Gibson in those early

days of Jack, who taught us all, you know, that motto that footballers we had didn't

realise then, but not only will I turn you into a better footballer, you'll be a better

person.

Jack had that way about not saying much.

We that were able to see the way he acted, the way he did things, the way he looked at

you, you know, by not saying much.

My fights with him in the end, it was just a phone call to say, don't agree with you.

But then ring me back, maybe a couple of months later, maybe I was wrong.

If you're humble enough to do those things too and admit that, you know, and I was very

fortunate in, I think, you know, where I acknowledged the Roosters back then of Ron Jones, who gave

me that opportunity, who in the end didn't make, didn't change.

My relationship then with Nick Politis started in 1974.

When he first became the sponsor?

When he first became the sponsor.

The first sponsor of Rugby League.

Yes, he was.

You know, and I had to go to see Kevin Humphries at the time of the league.

No, we're not ready for that.

No, it won't happen.

Do you think Nick Politis gave up?

Do you think the Roosters gave up?

This is $50,000 going on the jumper.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Rugby League then saw it as an opportunity.

That was a decision that changed the way the jumper was and the marketing side of saying,

hey, this jumper is worth something.

What's wrong with having a decent name on it?

And naturally, City Forward became so much the first part of that.

Yeah.

And I respect people like yourself and watch you all grow.

You know, what you're seeing, again, doing the things, footballers that did so well.

You know, it's sad to me now that guys that I came through aren't here

and some of them aren't, don't know me.

You know, because of, it was a different way of life.

So when you say who, I probably go, I can start with my father as an Anglican minister

growing up in a vicarage and thinking to myself, not knowing how, when I was so young,

of why are we, why is mum cooking?

Why have I got so many people in our lounge room sleeping on the floor?

I didn't know until I was older and we were the refuge back then in a country town.

You know, if people had, people were doing it tough, where did they go?

To the church.

Oh, a lot of my stuff, I don't hide behind that now.

I'm disappointed in many ways that I didn't do enough, you know, in all of that situation.

I didn't do enough of what I was taught back then.

But then I, look, that's why I acknowledge so much about what I learned at the Roosters.

Because they were wonderful people and I go back to talking to people like Dickie Dunn,

part of the team of the century.

Ray Steer.

The Pierce brothers that were footballers but then became successful businessmen

and weren't, weren't frightened in any way to encourage you to do something,

to tell you the way you teach young people today,

why you can look them in the eye and say, don't do what I did.

Learn from my mistakes and we try and encourage that.

I was fortunate all that happened to me as a 20 year old.

That I'd never had in, you know, my early life as a footballer until I came to Sydney

and I go to the Roosters.

Can I ask you this final question, John?

Administration of rugby league today is much, like it's a much bigger business

and like it's an enormous business, NRL.

But there is, I think, some, a new initiative, this is the game of the Vegas.

It's not a new initiative.

It's been thought about and talked about.

But what do you think about Volandis' initiative?

Do you think, what do you think this will do for us?

I mean, and what do they have to do to make it stick?

Well, I probably, I'm not close enough to it on that.

But I think the initiative of what I've seen him do with racing across the country,

race tracks, the development of racing for someone like me who's not racing

to be watching a racing carnival to see what it's, how it's presented on television.

Yeah.

Is again through television.

I think then to see again what comes through the pandemic,

which we've done as sport, to be able to make decisions

which I think were very difficult at the time.

So I want to keep playing was a very big decision.

Project Apollo worked brilliantly and everybody copied us.

I feel everyone copied us.

Everyone.

Now, there probably was a lot of people.

It advised him to say, no, we can't do this.

And I would hope he would have said, well, why?

Well, I understand that is the case.

Yeah.

Well, why?

Well, I'm going to make the decision long as I've got support around me.

Okay.

And then I think something like this initiative as we did 30 years ago,

we didn't have, we didn't have Fox.

We didn't have pay television.

We didn't have any of that.

You're looking for a new market.

And I believe that that is the league doing it.

People say to me and I understand.

I understand we're a betting game now.

I understand that when we watch the game.

Every ad we see on the jumpers and all that, it's a betting game.

If it's dollars, wonderful because the more money we've got,

the more we can put back into the game, the more we can develop

and all that thing.

My ultimate aim was against the clubs.

When we started to have money, I used to say to my board,

I want to put $2 million aside a year until we get $50 million in the bank.

That will run the administration game.

Give everything else back to the game in development.

If we've got all this money that we can then encourage,

as we've seen the growth in women's sport, if I had a concern again,

it's the younger generation that aren't participating as much

because they do have a lot more to do.

We're losing the volunteer coach in country areas that I'm told about,

the mum and dad who's now working on weekends.

All the things that I was fortunate to be able to do and have,

I hope as long as that is generated into again the development

and expansion of the game.

When I look at this again, we're going to 20 teams.

I've got no doubt if we hadn't have gone to Super League,

we would have been 20 teams still, if not more or maybe.

As Ken Arthurson always said then with the International Rugby League,

the Pacific nations,

we wanted to play internationals more often.

Our dream was to develop more players that you could have the Australian team

over there playing but you wouldn't lose anything in the competition

because there was still as good as players as ever playing for the clubs.

And that's development but you can only do that with a desire

and money to develop.

I think that will be the challenge for all sports at the moment

because we're all in competition

and those, when I look at a couple of the sports that were very prominent before us,

how they've fallen down because…

Rugby Union.

Well, look at rugby.

Rugby was so powerful for all of us.

We all played it.

It was part of everything.

Money was there.

Everything was there.

But what did we do?

We grabbed an early money and we didn't use it in the right way.

We gave it to a small group of players in many cases

rather than using a lot of it for the long-term development of the game.

Single-mindedness.

What I'm getting out of this is your single-mindedness

with the support of likes like Ken Arthurson and et cetera

and Peter Valandi's single-mindedness in terms of,

well, I think it's a good idea.

We're probably going to research it.

I'm going to prosecute it but he needs the support of his board

which he no doubt he has.

They're the sorts of characteristics that,

that create change.

Yeah.

And you are, to me, you are extraordinarily single-minded

but at the same time you will consent it.

You will seek everyone's consent.

You will consensus discussion.

You will have a discussion with everybody about it.

No one, you don't go off and do things without telling people.

I was fortunate too to be sent to America when the NFL were expanding.

You know, I spent considerable time there, a number of visits.

I looked at football, European football, soccer,

how they were expanding for television.

I believed in television for the future.

And the AFL model back then was very good.

They wanted to go national.

You know, I remember those times that, you know,

Ross Oakley and that was president at the time and said,

we're not interested in the next five years.

We just want to be playing a game.

To be playing a game in Sydney every week.

And that was a model that he had for 2020.

So now, you know, we've got the teams across the nation,

two teams in Perth.

When we went to Perth as league, we had one AFL team.

And, you know, we believed in it because we had expats, English,

New Zealand, Australian, South African players

that were supportive of the game.

It would be a lot harder now on expansion.

But we've seen the, you know, the improvement and the standard

of the Pacific nations and the players that we've got there.

If that's the next step, I'm sure Peter will say to his board

and against a lot of people who are probably not game to tell him,

be careful.

And when you say what's the next step in America, keep it going.

You can't do it in one year.

No.

Now you've got the television, Fox here promoting, but it's over there.

We didn't have, we had ESPN when we did it.

But they just said, who?

Yeah.

Who are you?

Where from?

No, not interested.

So you've got to continue it.

John Quayle, as I thought it would be.

This has been really fascinating.

I really enjoyed it.

Good to see you, Quayle.

And by the way, say hello to Diane for me.

Thank you, Mark.

It's been, I'm pleased that I get the opportunity to talk to you like this.

As I said, we talk once a year every now and again and say hello to each other.

Well, that's because we used to meet up beginning in December,

a group of blokes.

I know.

We did, didn't we?

But we can't do it because unfortunately quite a few of them don't exist anymore.

They've all passed away.

That's exactly right.

And we could tell some more.

But we're still here.

But we won't be talking about them.

We won't.

We can tell some wonderful stories still.

Totally.

Quayle, good to see you, mate.

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