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The NFL’s international presence has been expanding over the past few years and that expansion could soon include putting a game in Australia.
According to 9News in Melbourne, the NFL is considering the possibility of scheduling a regular season game in Australia and it could happen as soon as the 2025 season or as late as the 2026 season. It’s not completely clear where the game would be held, but one stadium in Melbourne — the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) — has already had early discussions with the NFL.
If a game does get moved to Australia, it appears that the Los Angeles Rams would be in the driver’s seat to serve as the home team, which makes sense, because they currently have sole international marketing rights to the country. Under the NFL’s global marketing program, the Rams were awarded Australia rights in December 2021 and they’re guaranteed to have those rights through Jan. 1, 2027, so it makes sense that the team would want to get a game in Down Under before possibly losing the sole rights.
Back in February 2022, Rams’ chief operating officer Kevin Demoff said that he would love to see the team play in Australia.
“I would love to play a game there at some point; be it an exhibition game, or come for training camp, or if the NFL ever decides to put a (regular season) game over there, I think we would be the first to raise our hand and look to do it,” Demoff said.
Although the logistics would be complicated, it wouldn’t be impossible. There’s a 14-hour time difference between Melbourne/Sydney and the Eastern Time Zone in the United States, which isn’t ideal, but the NFL could certainly work around it. If the game kicked off at noon on Monday in Melbourne, that would be a 9 p.m. ET kickoff in the United States. The NFL could put the game in Week 1 and play it on Thursday or Friday so that the two teams have plenty of time to travel back and re-adjust to time in…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-eyeing-australia-for-possible-regular-season-game-with-this-team-in-2025-or-2026-per-report/
Author : John Breech
Publish date : 2024-05-21 12:17:38
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