Later this year, the Los Angeles Rams<\/a> will \u201chost\u201d the San Francisco 49ers<\/a> at the Melbourne Cricket Ground<\/a>, in a clash between two historic NFC West rivals, whose rivalry dates back to 1950 and remains one of the NFL\u2019s oldest and most intense in history.<\/p>\n The marquee fixture comes as part of a wider commitment between the NFL and NFL Australia<\/a>, announcing a multi-year deal running through to 2027 to hold a series of official league games down under and further strengthen the estimated 7.5-million-strong fan base that\u2019s been less-than quietly growing in Australia for the last few years.<\/p>\n \u201cAs we continue our preparations for the NFL\u2019s first-ever regular season game at the MCG in Melbourne, we are delighted that the San Francisco 49ers will take on the Los Angeles Rams,\u201d said NFL Australia & New Zealand general manager Charlotte Offord. <\/p>\n \u201cThe 49ers are a popular franchise within the Australian market, and this rivalry game solidifies what we know is going to be an incredible NFL experience for our fans down under.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s no surprise Melbourne has been carefully selected for this momentous occasion: the Victorian capital is already the sporting hub of Australia, hosting the Australian Open<\/a>, the Formula 1 Australian Grand Prix<\/a>, the AFL Grand Final, the Boxing Day Test at the MCG, the Melbourne Cup and Spring Racing Carnival, and major annual events such as the Nike Melbourne Marathon Festival. <\/p>\n With 62 regular-season NFL games played outside the US in recent years with London\u2019s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Munich\u2019s FC Bayern Munich Arena, and Madrid\u2019s Santiago Bernab\u00e9u Stadium, among the league\u2019s emerging host cities, the \u2018G will be counted in esteemed company once the footy action rolls around to Yarra Park later this year. <\/p>\n In the global sporting stakes, it\u2019s fair to say Melbourne continues to rack up wins against its local competition.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NFL will host its first-ever regular-season game in Australia, with the Los Angeles Rams set to host…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":461089,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-461088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461088\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Melbourne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Melbourne-Cricket-Ground-AFL-Grand-Final-2025-1200x675.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"LA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/LA-Rams-49ers-Feature-Image-1200x675.jpg\")
<\/p>\n