49ers coach Kyle Shanahan has griped about starting the 2026 season in the Land Down Under. During a Friday press conference in Melbourne, Commissioner Roger Goodell just smiled and gave him a Vegemite sandwich.
Shanahan spoke repeatedly at the recent NFL annual meeting about the team’s season-opening game in Australia. He’s obviously not thrilled about a Week 1 game that includes such a long trip through so many time zones.
Especially since he believes the Rams specifically lobbied for the 49ers to be the opponent in Melbourne, in order to avoid having 49ers fans commandeer SoFi Stadium (again).
At the media held in connection with the September 10 here (September 11 there) game, Goodell shrugged at Shanahan’s concerns.
“Coaches have a focus on winning,” Goodell said. “That’s their number one job. And so Coach Shanahan is enthusiastic and a great football coach, but also someone who truly understands the importance of expanding our game globally. But his job is to win. His job is to play. And I always say coaches like to play at 1 o’clock and 4 o’clock — and don’t get in the way of that.
“So we’re gonna make it a great experience for the team. That’s one of the things we focus on, everybody here, and so many others have focused on, make it a great experience for everyone, the team included. When they go back, they’ve got to make sure that they’re able to continue the competitiveness, because this game is real. This counts. And they’ll go on to Week Two as soon as they leave here.”
It’s one thing to have a game moved out of the Sunday afternoon window. It’s another to have it moved to a different house on a different street in a different continent. Especially to start the season.
After the Thursday (Friday) game, both teams will travel home through 19 time zones. They’ll have a game the following Sunday. Unless one of them gets a Monday night game to cap Week 2 — and one of them absolutely should.
The fact that Shanahan dared to share his reasonable gripes publicly likely guarantees that one of them will. And that it will likely be the Rams.
On September 10, the NFL will play its first-ever regular-season game in Australia (where it will be September 11 at kickoff). While it may be the first time the NFL plays a game that counts in the land of koalas and kookaburras, it apparently won’t be the last.
In a press conference at the location of the Week 1 49ers-Rams game in Melbourne, Commissioner Roger Goodell made it clear the NFL will be back.
“There’s no question that we’re going to be playing here again,” Goodell said, via Reuters. “Our view is that we’re coming here for the long term. We don’t come as a one-off. This isn’t a circus.”
But it sort of is a circus. Because the circus typically comes to town once per year. While that may be enough to fill a stadium, it’s not enough to fully monetize the product internationally.
Look at England. The NFL has been playing regular-season games in London for 20 years. And the NFL is still struggling to get sustainable traction there.
Last year’s Week 1 Chiefs-Chargers game in Brazil — which was streamed globally at no cost by YouTube — had an international audience of 1.2 million.
The U.S. population is in the vicinity of 350 million. The rest of the world has 7.9 billion people. This means that only 0.015 percent of the rest of the planet watched the game.
That’s not deterring the league from rolling the stone up a steep hill, even if some think the NFL should realize that it’s not really working. And it won’t work until international viewership improves, dramatically. That’s where the real money is, as the NFL has learned in its domestic experience.
And so Australia will now become a stop on the NFL’s traveling non-circus circus. It could be an annual thing; asked whether the 2026 game means the NFL could be back in 2027, Goodell said, “It might.”
Might is the key word. In America, the NFL has plenty of it. It wants to get more of it beyond our borders.
It’s obviously a long-term play. The overriding question is how long it will take. And whether, at some point, it’s going to hit a hard ceiling on how big it will be.
Tickets to the NFL’s first regular-season game in Australia had high prices and sold fast anyway, which is good for the NFL’s bottom line but bad for the fans of American football Down Under who say they were priced out of seeing the Week One game between the 49ers and Rams in Melbourne.
The Sydney Morning Herald reports that many fans said there was no realistic way to get tickets, as tens of thousands of people were in the virtual Ticketmaster line the moment tickets went on sale. One fan said within 26 minutes of tickets going on sale, the only seats left were ones with restricted views, with prices ranging from $560 to $630 Australian ($392 to $441 American).
The NFL’s Australia office said more than 151,000 fans registered their interest in buying tickets to the game at Melbourne Cricket Ground, which has a capacity of 100,000.
The Rams-49ers game kicks off at 8:35 p.m. ET on Thursday, September 10, which in Melbourne is 10:35 a.m. on Friday, September 11. Local Australian officials told the NFL that there was huge demand for an NFL game in Australia, and that the game would sell out the Melbourne Cricket Ground at any time on any date. The fast sales of tickets for a Friday morning game have proven that true. And frustrating to the fans who can’t get in.
Offseason programs will start getting underway around the NFL next week.
The ten teams that hired new coaches this offseason will be eligible to start working with their players on Monday, April 6. The Ravens are the only team that has set that as their first day of work while the Cardinals, Falcons, Bills, Browns, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Steelers and Titans have set Tuesday as their opening day.
All of those teams will also be able to hold a voluntary minicamp later in the spring. Every team is also scheduled to hold a rookie minicamp and a mandatory minicamp over the course of the next few months.
The first two weeks of work for all teams is limited to meetings, strength and conditioning, and physical rehabilitation only. The three-week second phase allows for on-field work, but no full-speed team drills while the third OTA phase allows for team drills, but there is no live contact allowed at any point in the offseason.
Most of the 22 teams with returning coaches will be opening their offseason programs on April 20 or 21. The Broncos have set May 4 as their first day.
The decision of quarterback Kirk Cousins to sign with the Raiders removes from the board a potential backup option for the Rams. And it potentially kicks the door a little wider for a return by Jimmy Garoppolo.
Via Nate Atkins of The Athletic, Garoppolo is currently “weighing a few options” as he plans his next move.
He doesn’t need to rush; since entering the league in 2014, Garoppolo has made $156 million. His days as a starter are likely over, but there’s still a need for him.
The Cardinals were interested. After talks hit a snag, Arizona pivoted to Gardner Minshew. It’s still possible, in theory, that Garoppolo could supplant Jacoby Brissett there.
The Packers also need a veteran backup. They were interested in Cousins. Perhaps they could also be interested in Garoppolo.
He also could wait. Injuries happen. Urgency could lead to better financial offers. Now 34, he doesn’t need to rush into the wrong spot. He can wait for the right one, whenever and wherever it may emerge.
