The San Francisco 49ers landed in Melbourne a week before their September 10 clash with the Los Angeles Rams. It’s a new experience for the team, which is practically on the other side of the earth. However, there is one thing that head coach Kyle Shanahan laments about this international matchup.
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“It’s cool for us [to come to Melbourne],” Shanahan said September 6 at a presser, via San Francisco Standard’s David Lombardi. “Just, we always have an advantage of having one home game a year in LA, just the way our fans are, to take over that [SoFi] stadium. So, it’s disappointing to let them [Rams] off the hook and get them out of that. But I have a feeling, knowing how our fans roll, I have a feeling it won’t be much different here.”
The NFL changed its international game scheduling rules this year. Until now, teams could protect two home games from being moved to another country. They have now lost that advantage, as the league busies itself with adding more international games from next year onwards. The Rams will be playing as the home team in the upcoming clash with the 49ers at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Shanahan’s disappointment is valid. SoFi gets packed with 49ers fans when the team comes visiting; it is a sea of red watching a team in white, blue, and yellow. That was the case last year when San Francisco played Los Angeles and beat them 26-23. SoFi has never not felt like home for the 49ers.
They are also 5-2 vs the Rams at the venue.
However, Shanahan should expect a sea of red at Melbourne too. According to The Athletic, the Niners are the most popular NFL team in Australia. They have built that reputation despite not having marketing rights in the country. However, making the trip to please the fans is a backbreaking job, and the head coach had complained about it much earlier.
“I don’t see any pro,” he’d said. “It’s cool for the league to play globally. I think that’s awesome. But as far as the team doing it, no, there’s not much benefit to it. Sometimes it’s nice to get a bye week after, but doesn’t happen in Week 1.”
The flight from San Francisco to Melbourne is well over 12 hours, making prep difficult for the team. To beat jet lag and adjust to the new city, the 49ers made the trip well in advance. The Rams, however, will fly out on Tuesday, play the game Thursday, and fly back home right after.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell addressed Shanahan’s complaints directly while speaking to reporters in Melbourne, defending the league’s international push as valuable for growing the sport globally. This season has nine international matchups, the most the NFL has had. Next year, the number might go up to 10.
Shanahan has also been unhappy with what the trip does to the team’s schedule. The 49ers lose the usual four days of rest they would have after camp and the preseason because of the Australia trip. He also felt the Rams should have to deal with that kind of travel too, especially after saying Los Angeles had pushed for the matchup.
His thinking was pretty straightforward: if Los Angeles pushed for the Australia matchup, he wanted the Rams to make a second international trip too.
“Hopefully the league will do right and let us play the Rams in Mexico since we’ve got to go out of the country twice and they requested us. I’m requesting them in Mexico. Not that it gives us an advantage, it’s just fair to make them go out of the country twice, too,” Shanahan said.
This will be the first NFL regular-season game played in Australia, which will already be a day ahead when America tunes into the broadcast. However, Shanahan can be rest assured that regardless of the distance, the Faithful will be rooting for the team.