The Rams vs. 49ers game is Friday at 10:35 a.m. AEST, but the designated home team does not plan to reach Melbourne until Thursday. For the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia, that is a bad look. The 49ers, meanwhile, took the opposite approach. They arrived on September 4 and have spent the week doing exactly what the home team should have been doing: showing up.

NFL writer Don Atkinson put the criticism bluntly, pointing out that the 49ers are “spending a full week at public events and interacting with locals in Melbourne,” while the designated home team has barely engaged with the market.

“The Rams are the ‘home team,’ and the party responsible for requiring the 49ers take that lengthy trip (and we all know why), and they’ve done exactly jack squat to sell the NFL brand or connect with Australians. Fly in, fly out, no contact. I’m sure the Aussies feel great about that snub,” Atkinson wrote on X. “It’s going to be heavily red in the stands again.”

As strange as the Rams’ plan looks, McVay clearly sees it as strategy, not stubbornness.

Los Angeles sent staff on the 16-hour trip to Melbourne during the offseason, studied the effects, and came away believing the best move was to keep the team on its normal West Coast routine before arriving roughly a day before kickoff.

“The thinking in its simplest form is, what do we deem the best for our football players, and for them to try to be at their best?” McVay said.

The timing helps his case. A 10:35 a.m. kickoff in Melbourne is 5:35 p.m. in Los Angeles, so if the Rams can keep their body clocks on Pacific Time, they would effectively be playing in a late-afternoon window, when athletes typically perform well physically, and that is the exact gamble here.

McVay is not trying to adjust to Australia. He is trying to get in, play before his players’ body clocks catch up, and get out. His “I’d rather just keep it in-house” response only suggests he sees enough competitive value in the plan to keep the details guarded.

And McVay has already seen this approach work. The Rams pulled off a similar move in London last year, staying in Baltimore before landing just over 24 hours before kickoff. They then crushed Jacksonville 35-7 at Wembley, with Matthew Stafford throwing five touchdowns.

That success gives McVay a defense for the plan. Fans, however, are looking at something else entirely.

Rams’ Australia Strategy Isn’t Winning Over Fans

The Rams are the designated home team for a historic game, yet some fans feel they are acting like they cannot wait to get in and get out.

“Rams also hold one of the two NFL market licences for Australia, but the 9ers are the most supported NFL team.”

The fan had the number of rights holders wrong, but the larger point stands. Four NFL teams currently hold marketing rights in Australia, including the Rams, while the 49ers do not. Yet NFL figures supplied to The Athletic rank San Francisco as the league’s most popular team in Australia, with Los Angeles seventh.

And according to another fan, that difference in support is visible back home too.

“I’ve lived in SF and LA. I’m currently in LA, and SF is way more behind the Niners than LA is the Rams. It’s just true. LA is Dodgers and Lakers.”

For one longtime Rams fan, the disappointment was enough to skip the game entirely.

“I’ve been a Rams fan since 89. I’m not going to the game due to the costs of tickets and that it was super obvious that the Rams didn’t want to be here. I was hoping to be able to see some practises etc. Super disappointed but not surprised.”

That frustration has only added to expectations of a heavily pro-49ers crowd.

“It always was gonna be a sea of Red, but ur totally right the little chance there was of Rams fans bein there is gone.. Thats gonna be Niners 3rd home away from home following LEVI South in LA, and Mexico City!”

That stings more because the Rams have official marketing rights in Australia, while San Francisco has owned the week in Melbourne.

The stakes go beyond one game. The MCG is hosting the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia as the league tries to turn the country into a long-term market, with a multi-year agreement already in place.

That makes McVay’s gamble simple. Win, and the late-arrival plan looks calculated. Lose in front of a sea of red and gold, and the criticism becomes much harder to dismiss.