The National Football League continues to expand its international presence and it seems to have its sights sets on another country.
According to 9News in Melbourne, the NFL is considering the possibility of scheduling a regular season game in Australia and it could happen as soon as the 2025 season or as late as the 2026 season. It’s not completely clear where the game would be held, but one stadium in Melbourne — the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) — has already had early discussions with the NFL.
If a game does indeed get played in Australia, the Los Angeles Rams would be the team to serve as the home team because they currently have sole international marketing rights to the country. Under the NFL’s global marketing program, the Rams were awarded Australia rights in December 2021 and they’re guaranteed to have those rights through January, 2027.
Back in February of 2022 (via FOX Sports), the Rams COO Kevin Demoff said that he would be in favor of his team playing a game in Australia.
“I would love to play a game there at some point; be it an exhibition game, or come for training camp, or if the NFL ever decides to put a (regular season) game over there, I think we would be the first to raise our hand and look to do it,” Demoff said.
Via CBS Sports —
The only thing that the NFL seems to have to figure out is the logistics. There’s a 14-hour time difference between Melbourne/Sydney and the Eastern Time Zone in the United States, which isn’t ideal, but the NFL could certainly work around it. If the game kicked off at noon on Monday in Melbourne, it would be a 9 p.m. ET game on Sunday night in the States. The NFL could put the game in Week 1 and play it on Thursday or Friday so that the two teams have plenty of time to travel back and readjust to USA time.
If the NFL chose to put the game after Week 1, the two teams playing in the game would likely need a bye after playing Down Under. Either way, it would almost certainly be an afternoon start in Australia so that it could be shown in prime time in the U.S.
This isn’t the first time that the NFL has looked at putting a game in Australia. Back in 2016, the league briefly considered putting the 2017 Pro Bowl in Sydney. Also, the NFL did play a preseason game in Australia back in 1999 with the Broncos beating the Chargers 20-17 in Sydney.
The NFL is also getting set to open an international academy in Australia. As part of the league’s International Player Pathway program, the NFL has had an academy in England since 2019, and soon, there will be two academies after the second one opens on Australia’s Gold Coast in September.
The NFL’s international series has been expanding at blistering rate over the past few years. From 2007 through 2021, the NFL held games in London, Mexico City and Toronto. The NFL has now doubled that international total since 2022 by adding games in Germany (Frankfurt and Munich), Brazil (Sao Paulo) and Spain (Madrid). The game in Brazil will take place in September with the Eagles hosting the Packers while the game in Madrid will be played in 2025.
As international expansion continues, don’t look for it to slow down and that’s because the NFL is expected to have as many as nine international games starting with the 2025 season. Thanks to a rule that the owners passed in December, all teams will be required to host an international game at least once every four years. That rule will go into effect in 2025, and once it does, the number of international games will increase dramatically.
