LOS ANGELES, CA — The Los Angeles Rams are taking a home game nearly 8,000 miles from Southern California this week for the first regular-season NFL game ever played in Australia.
There's just one problem: Melbourne appears to be falling for the San Francisco 49ers instead.
Australian media have seized on the dramatically different approaches taken by the NFC West rivals ahead of Friday's historic game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, with News.com.au declaring Monday that the Rams' Australian strategy was "about to blow up in the team's face."
The outlet reported that widespread estimates suggest as many as 90,000 spectators could be supporting San Francisco inside the roughly 100,000-seat MCG. There is no official breakdown of fans by team, and the figure remains an estimate, but Australian reporting has increasingly portrayed the Rams as outsiders at their own designated home game.
That's despite Los Angeles having a considerable head start in Australia.
The Rams were the first NFL franchise awarded Australian marketing rights when the league launched its international program in 2021, giving the team opportunities to develop its brand and fan base Down Under. Other NFL teams have since received Australian rights, but the Rams have spent several years building a presence there.
The 49ers, meanwhile, arrived in Melbourne last Friday — a full week before kickoff. The Rams aren't scheduled to arrive until this Thursday.
San Francisco has spent its extra days embracing Melbourne and Australian sporting culture.
The 49ers have interacted with fans, attended Australian sporting events and even sent former players to help run a Bunnings sausage sizzle — an Australian fundraising institution involving grilled sausages sold outside the hardware chain's stores.
The reception has been sufficiently enthusiastic that Melbourne's Herald Sun argued Tuesday that the 49ers had shown Australian sporting teams what real fan engagement looks like.
The newspaper praised the team's willingness to interact with supporters and embrace local culture and said San Francisco's efforts could give the nominal visiting team something resembling a home crowd Friday.
The Herald Sun contrasted the 49ers' weeklong presence with what it described as the Rams' "24-hour smash and grab heist," arguing that San Francisco's approach had been a public-relations masterclass.
News.com.au was similarly critical of Los Angeles, arguing that the Rams had handed their division rival an enormous opportunity to win Australian fans.
The Rams, however, have not been sitting out the week entirely. The organization has staff in Melbourne and is holding its inaugural Flag Football Community Day on Tuesday and Wednesday, an initiative that the Rams say will involve up to 50 Victorian government schools as well as independent schools.
The team is also opening "Rams House: The LA Tailgate Experience" along Melbourne's Southbank on Thursday, featuring live entertainment, Rams representatives and a 22-yard floating football field on the Yarra River.
But the players themselves are taking a very different approach from their San Francisco counterparts.
The 49ers arrived early to acclimate to Australia. Rams coach Sean McVay has instead opted for a late arrival designed to minimize the amount of time his players spend adjusting their body clocks before the game. Australian media have scrutinized the contrast, particularly because Los Angeles is officially the home team.
Then there's the kickoff time. Rams fans back in Los Angeles get a fairly conventional 5:35 p.m. Thursday start. The NFL lists Friday's game as kicking off at 10:35 a.m. local time at the MCG, which has a capacity of just over 100,000.
ABC Australia reported Tuesday that the unusual weekday-morning kickoff was scheduled to accommodate the Thursday-night television audience in the United States. The game begins at 8:35 p.m. in New York.
For fans actually attending in Melbourne, the MCG precinct opens at 7 a.m. ABC also reported that both seated and standing tickets remained available as of Monday, despite heavy interest in Australia's first NFL regular-season game.
The NFL is also arriving in Melbourne at an extraordinary point in Australia's sporting calendar. The Australian Football League is in the middle of its finals series, with the AFL Grand Final — one of the country's biggest sporting events — just a few weeks away at the very same stadium.
And Friday provides a particularly striking collision between the two codes. Just hours after the Rams and 49ers finish at the MCG, Victorian powerhouse Geelong will play Fremantle in a do-or-die AFL semifinal at Optus Stadium in Perth.
The Geelong Cats face the Fremantle Dockers at 8:10 p.m., and the AFL lists the game as sold out.
That makes Friday an unusual test of how much attention American football can command in one of the world's most sports-obsessed cities during the most important weeks of Australia's homegrown football season.
There is clearly an audience for it. The NFL says it has more than 7.5 million fans in Australia, while nearly 100,000 people participate in NFL Flag programs across more than 500 Australian schools. And the Rams have spent years trying to turn that interest into something more permanent.
When the NFL announced San Francisco as Los Angeles' opponent, Rams President Kevin Demoff said the organization looked forward to continuing to deepen its relationship with Melbourne ahead of the game.
By Friday, the MCG may provide the first real indication of how successful that effort has been. Or whether the 49ers got there first.
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