Auskick has its roots in the Little League which began to be played at half time during
VFL (now AFL) matches in the 1960s, and it was revised in
1980 to make it more accessible. Little League was expanded by
Ray Allsopp into a state development program called "Vickick", begun in
Victoria in 1985. Participation increased from 7,000 to 35,000 in four years. The ACT was one of the first other states or territories to introduce the program in 1991 as "Auskick". Between 1993 and 1995, former AFL player and coach
David Parkin, who had been coaching the territory's
Teal Cup side, successfully lobbied the AFL for the national adoption of Auskick. In 1998, the
AFL Commission, the national governing body for the sport, began to roll it out nationally. At its peak, there were around 200,000 Auskick participants annually. In 2007, the program's slogan was "Where Champions Begin", with
Jo Silvagni (wife of former AFL player
Stephen Silvagni) and
Robert DiPierdomenico, the 1986 co-
Brownlow Medallist as the main ambassadors.{{Cite web|url=http://www.afl.com.au/tabid/208/default.aspx?newsid=41523|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121120090025/http://www.afl.com.au/tabid/208/default.aspx?newsid=41523|url-status=dead ==Auskick in non-traditional Australian rules football regions ==