Between 17-hour flights, time zone changes and a morning kickoff, the league’s first regular-season game Down Under is a grand experiment in when football players should sleep—and how far the league can travel.

The growing popularity of American football in Australia will see the NFL play a regular-season game there for the first time when a sellout crowd packs into the 100,000-capacity Melbourne Cricket Ground.

By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE, Sept 9 (Reuters) - The National Football League (NFL) is determined to make a big splash at its first regular-season game in Australia but out in the Melbourne suburbs, a quieter revolution is brewing without the helmets,

The Los Angeles Rams have an absurd, whirlwind travel schedule for their upcoming matchup against the San Francisco 49ers.

While the NFL promotes flag football in Australia, it’s also benefitting from those who making rosters and winning Super Bowls

The Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers will meet at the famed Melbourne Cricket Ground next week in what the NFL intends to be the first of many regular-season games in front of its growing Australian fan base.

Australians are eating up the NFL, with a fan base Down Under that has ballooned from 5 million to 8.8 million fans in just the past three years.

The second game of the 2026 NFL season will be held in Melbourne, Australia by two teams with dramatically different approaches to the cross-continental competition.