By Ian Ransom<\/p>\n
MELBOURNE, Sept 3 (Reuters) \u2013 The NFL is only considering Australia as a host of week one games over the long term rather than bringing teams there later in \u200bthe schedule due to the heavy travel involved, a senior \u200cexecutive said on Thursday.<\/p>\n
The NFL will put on its first game in Australia next week, with the Los Angeles Rams and San\u00a0Francisco 49ers kicking off their seasons at the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground as part of a multiyear deal with the \u200cVictoria \u200bstate government.<\/p>\n
With Melbourne a 14-hour flight from the\u00a0U.S. \u2060West Coast, the travel \u2060means less time for the teams to rest and prepare for their games in week two.<\/p>\n
\u201cA week one game is important given the travel there and the travel back,\u201d\u00a0NFL Executive Vice President Peter \u200bO\u2019Reilly told reporters in a call from New York.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, yes is the answer.\u201d<\/p>\n
In March, 49ers coach Kyle Shanahan said there was not \u2060much benefit for his team in coming \u2060to Australia given there was no bye after week \u200bone, even if it was \u201ccool\u201d for the league to play globally.<\/p>\n
The teams \u200bare taking different approaches to preparing for the game, with \u200cthe 49ers arriving a week early to acclimatise and the Rams touching down a day before the game.<\/p>\n
The MCG game falls in the middle of the Australian Football League\u2019s (AFL) season-ending playoffs when huge crowds typically flock \u2060to the nation\u2019s largest stadium to watch the top flight of Australian Rules football.<\/p>\n
The NFL will not decide on its 2027 schedule until after the \u20602026 season finishes \u200cbut the league wants to host annual games in \u2060Australia, which it regards as a strategic growth \u200bmarket.<\/p>\n
Hosting further \u200cweek one matches in Melbourne will mean negotiating \u200bwith the\u00a0AFL, \u2060which generally occupies\u00a0the MCG during finals weekends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have great partners in the MCG and the AFL, and know we\u2019ll work to a good solution there that allows the NFL to continue to play in Australia on an ongoing basis,\u201d O\u2019Reilly said.<\/p>\n
The AFL declined to comment.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing \u200bby Peter Rutherford)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ian Ransom MELBOURNE, Sept 3 (Reuters) \u2013 The NFL is only considering Australia as a host of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":878077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-878076","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\/878076","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=878076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/878076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/878077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=878076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=878076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=878076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}