MELBOURNE, Australia -- By the time the San Francisco 49ers took off for Australia late Wednesday night Pacific Time, their Qantas Airbus A380 charter flight carried more than 95,000 pounds of human and material cargo. The payload included 220 passengers and their checked luggage, weighing in at an estimated 62,000 pounds, alongside 33,000 pounds of essential team equipment.
Perhaps more important than the cold weather gear (remember, it's winter in Australia), helmets, shoulder pads and jerseys packed tightly into the aircraft was what wasn't on it: dirt.
As the 49ers and the NFL collaborated over the past four months to move their football operation nearly 8,000 miles from the Bay Area to Melbourne, a unique challenge emerged of ensuring no California soil hitched a ride into one of the most isolated, ecologically guarded nations on the planet. Australia enforces some of the strictest biosecurity measures in the world. Introducing any sort of invasive species, insects or plant disease could lead to ecological and/or economic disaster, per the Australian government's Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. And while the cleaning process didn't need to be over the top -- the goal was to eliminate any large clumps of dirt or grass -- it added a layer of consideration as the Niners prepared for departure.
"Australia is unlike any other market we've been to," said Joe Valentine, the NFL's director of international football operations & logistics. "This is a completely different operation. Being 8,000 miles away from home, 16-hour flight, 17-hour time difference, it's very, very different than the European setup or even the South American setup that we've become accustomed to. We've been way out more in front of this one because it is so different."