Thursday’s NFL game between the Rams and 49ers at Melbourne Cricket Ground, the league’s first regular-season game in Australia, “left Australian fans craving more,” according to Pierik & Ward of the Melbourne AGE. A week of promotion “by the goliath that is the NFL,” which “all but bumped the AFL finals series into the shadows in Melbourne, delivered on and off the field.” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell “wasn’t surprised by the huge turnout.” He told Netflix’s broadcast that he has “never met a culture that loves sports more than this.” Goodell said, “We always had a high expectation that this would be successful. This exceeded it in every way. … I think this is going to open doors to more games, not just here, but in other markets” (Melbourne AGE, 9/11).

NEWFOUND FANS: In S.F., Harrison Rich noted fans of the 49ers “made up a majority among those piling into the bowls” of the MCG. There was “not an open seat by kickoff, 100,000-plus strong and largely red.” The crowd’s lean was “unsurprising considering the 49ers’ effort to market their merits all over Melbourne for the past week.” The organization “had a traveling party of 200 who all spent a full week in the city, putting on more than 50 events.” The Rams — technically the home team — were absent until 29 hours before kickoff, making a “minimal effort to assimilate in the city or sell America’s brand of football to potential fans down under.” The “party in Melbourne began before sunrise.” By 9am, 90 minutes before kickoff, the concourse in front of the MCG’s gates was “so packed that you couldn’t find an unoccupied inch of space.” Thousands of fans “marched down the stadium’s entrance toward the gates, while thousands more hung around the Netflix fan zone for a pregame event” (S.F. CHRONICLE, 9/11).

TASTE OF AMERICAN FOOTBALL: In Melbourne, Tyson Jackson writes the NFL “hit it out of the park with a genuine, uncompromised game-day experience.” American stadium announcers, cheerleaders, sponsors, and field layouts — “nothing was watered down.” No “expense was spared as organisers turned the MCG into a true NFL venue rather than settling for a second-tier product.” The crowd was “entertained from the moment they passed through the turnstiles.” Even during the Australian national anthem fans were “treated to a military flyover and pyrotechnics,” flourishes usually reserved for the American anthem that preceded it (Melbourne HERALD SUN, 9/11). In Melbourne, Jake Niall writes MCG was “utterly taken over by the NFL and Americanised.” The stadium was “transformed in every way, not just the rectangular playing field drawn inside the oval, but culturally” (Melbourne AGE, 9/11).