The NFL announced today that the 49ers and Rams will play in Melbourne, Australia, during the 2026 season, and 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey isn’t sure that’s such a good idea.
Talking to reporters at Super Bowl festivities in San Francisco, McCaffrey questioned how it’s going to work out for the 49ers to have to travel farther than any NFL team has ever traveled for a game.
“Australia’s pretty far,” McCaffrey said. “I’d love to see how the schedule would work. Transparently, that might be a little too far. You have to find another way to do that. It’d be really cool . . . we don’t care where we play, we’ll show up and play, but Australia, what’s that flight, 20 hours or something?”
It’s not quite as far as McCaffrey thought: A direct flight from San Francisco to Melbourne takes about 16 hours, and the flight home will only be about 14 hours, thanks to the tailwind across the Pacific. It’s a long way, and even if players think it’s too long to travel, the NFL has made clear that it wants the money it’s making in international markets and is only going to keep sending teams far from home.
