The Los Angeles Rams might have avoided the annual migration of San Francisco 49ers fans to SoFi Stadium this year, but they’ll still be seeing red — a lot of it — at next week’s season opener in Australia, the NFL’s first game on the continent.
That’s because not only are 49ers fans the most well-traveled in the league, but there are already plenty of them Down Under. According to the NFL, the 49ers are the league’s most popular team in Australia, even though they aren’t one of the four teams — the Rams, Philadelphia Eagles, Las Vegas Raiders and Seattle Seahawks — with marketing rights in the country.
The 49ers leave for Melbourne on Wednesday night and arrive Friday morning. The Rams aren’t expected in until the day before the game, which kicks off locally at 10:35 a.m. on Sept. 11 (or 8:35 p.m. ET on Sept. 10).
“I think that comes from being one of the top teams in the ’80s, when a lot of people here consumed the NFL,” NFL Australia and New Zealand general manager Charlotte Offord said of the 49ers’ popularity. “And a lot of people continued to follow those top teams.”
Steve Moss, 50, will be among those wearing a 49ers jersey at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which can host up to 100,024, next week. The Brisbane resident said his NFL introduction came in the early 1990s via the “John Madden American Football” video game he played on Sega Mega Drive, the Aussie equivalent of the Sega Genesis. The 49ers were winning Super Bowls, Joe Montana was a global figure and San Francisco became Moss’ team.
The front and back covers of “John Madden American Football,” which introduced Steve Moss to the NFL in the early 1990s. (Courtesy of Steve Moss)
He said he drifted away from the sport over the next two decades as the 49ers slipped from their throne. But he came rushing back in 2015 when Jarryd Hayne, a star in the National Rugby League, won a roster spot with the 49ers.
“He was such an amazing Rugby League player,” Moss said. “It was a really huge story for him to make the roster. And so that’s when I really re-engaged with it.”
This time, Moss was hooked for good.
“As an adult, I could see the choreography and the work that goes into plays,” he said. “And it’s such a different style of football from the Australian code. But I found it fascinating. I paraphrase it like this: ‘I came back for Jarryd Hayne, and I stayed for Joe Staley.’”
For Australian fans like him, the NFL is a tangle of familiarity and foreignness.
The country already has its own brand of football, Australian rules football, a four-quarter game with hard hits, an oblong ball and uprights. The Australian Football League is the country’s most popular spectator sport, and half its 18 teams are based in Melbourne, one reason the city was tapped to host the 49ers and Rams. The AFL, in fact, will be in the midst of its postseason when the NFL comes to town.
Then again, concepts like a forward pass, polycarbonate helmets and the stop-and-start style of play are strange to Australian viewers. So is the sight of a player celebrating after nearly every play.
“A defensive guy gets a sack, and to us, he’s jumping around like he’s won the Super Bowl,” Moss said. “Every touchdown is a massive celebration. Even when teams are losing and they’ll score, they’ll celebrate. And that’s not what’s done over here. If you’re scoring, if you’re making good tackles, you’re just doing your job.”
Punter Jack Bouwmeester said Aussies call that “tall poppy syndrome.” Bouwmeester, a Bendigo, Australia, native who spent the offseason with the 49ers and is currently on the Rams’ practice squad, explained that in Australia, the poppy that strains for sunlight and rises above its mates is the one that gets lopped off.
“If anyone does anything good, they’ll cut you down for it,” he said. “Australia’s real humble. You’ve got to be humble — thank the team and everything.”
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Said Moss: “The Australian reaction for someone who’s showboating too much is, ‘Oh, pull your head in, mate.’ I think it epitomizes the tall poppy syndrome — you’re sticking your head out too far.”
Still, Bouwmeester said that’s why some Australians are drawn to the NFL — because the Joe Staley– and George Kittle-sized personalities are so uncommon in their sports culture.
“In America you can kind of be yourself or puff your chest out a little bit,” said Bouwmeester, who played collegiately at Michigan State, Utah and Texas. “They like how people get in the postgame press conference and are like, ‘Oh, I dominated today.’ If you said that in Australia, it wouldn’t go down well.”
And plenty of Australians have been tuning in to the NFL over the past five years, which is why the league decided to hold a Week 1 game there. In 2022, the league had 5.7 million followers in Australia, Offord said. Last year, that number was 8.8 million — out of a population of roughly 28 million.
The league is actively marketing the sport in Australia (the Rams since 2021); flag football clinics and leagues have become popular; and fantasy football has caught on in a big way.
“People in this market love gambling on sports,” Offord said. “So I think there’s a correlation between those two.”
Said Bouwmeester: “All my closest friends do fantasy football. There’s also a lot more podcasts, a lot more people talking about it now than when I started punting (in 2018). Once they learn the game — and it was the same with Mom and Dad — it becomes a lot more enjoyable.”
Another reason the NFL has been able to catch on is that there isn’t much overlap between its season and the local rugby and football seasons. The AFL finishes in late September, and the NRL wraps up in October, around Week 5 of the NFL season. At that point, the NFL sees an uptick in Aussie interest that rises over the next three months, culminating with the Super Bowl. That game airs at 9:30 a.m. on a Monday.
“A few years ago, really diehard fans might watch it on their phone at work,” Moss said. “Now, people take the day off, there are watch parties, hotels get special licenses to be able to serve alcohol earlier in the morning. So, it’s definitely become a bigger thing over the last five years.”
Moss has been one of those diehards for the past decade or so, though he admits he’s usually at work when the 49ers are playing, and that when he watches the replays, he’ll fast-forward through stoppages and advertisements.
Next week’s game will be his first to watch in person. He’s looking forward to the strategy, the drama, the intensity and all the things that intrigue him about the NFL. But he’s not sure how his wife will react.
“I think she will love the atmosphere,” he said. “She won’t have a clue what’s going on as far as the intricacies of the match. But it’s gonna be such a great event. It seems like they’re putting in a lot of work for it, and Melbourne does events really well.”