NFL coming to Australia? ( It’s official a NFL game will be play in Melbourne, Australia in 2026)

As part of its international expansion, Australia has been allocated the LA Rams as “our” team. If this is to go ahead, in all likelihood, it will be the Rams and another west coast team. It won’t be the Saints.

For the record, it’s about a 15-hour flight from LA to Melbourne. It’s approximately 11 hours from LA to Frankfurt (11.5 hours from Kansas City, noting the Chiefs made that trip last year). I don’t think it’s that big of a deal. Plus, there are quite a lot of Australians playing in the NFL now (including, arguably, a top-3 LT in Jordan Mailata). I am sure the marketing executives at head office would use the term “synergies” to describe that.

Frankly, I reckon players on the west coast would much rather come to Melbourne in November/December when it’s warm, enjoy the opportunity to play in a historic stadium like the MCG with 100,000+ fans, and in a city that is famous for international sporting events (the Australian Open and the F1 Grand Prix to name a couple), as compared to travelling to places like Lambeau Field, Foxborough, Soldier Field or whatever multitude of freezing and/or unsafe destinations there are in the US.