The assembled press kept asking, but the American would not give them what they wanted. Just what does San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan think of Melbourne?
“I haven’t left the hotel, except to come to this practice, for five days or however long we’ve been here,” he said at a training session on Wednesday, admitting to jet lag that has woken him at 1am all week.
Australians relish what the rest of the world thinks of them, perhaps none more than Melburnians. Of their coffee. Of their status as the country’s so-called sporting capital.
“I would love to say I’m getting out and experiencing Australia and I’m sure if I did, I’d think it’s awesome,” Shanahan continued, trying to maintain the spirit of this vast exercise in cultural exchange. “But this is just … we travel a lot, and when we do, we don’t really do anything.”
Fortunately, there are many Americans happy to express their views. The travelling NFL media contingent have been doing the heavy lifting, espousing opinions on local cuisine and lifestyle difference. Some, like Grant Cohn, have brought their brash approach to tongue-in-cheek coverage of local sport; he called for the Western Bulldogs to trade Marcus Bontempelli.
Circus or spectacular, the coming days will prove. Either way, this experiment will not be cheap. The Victorian government reportedly paid in excess of $10m for the NFL’s first regular season match in Australia (an exhibition was played in Sydney in 1999). It is the latest stop in the league’s international series that began with the UK in 2007, and has since expanded to Mexico, Germany, Brazil, Ireland, France and Spain.
The actual match – which kicks off at the MCG on Friday morning and will be broadcast into homes via Netflix – is expected to draw the largest US TV audience for any event in Australia since the 2000 Olympics. But this is about more than football.
While Shanahan might not see much of Melbourne, millions more will, both in the United States and for those fans who travel to Australia. Offensive tackle Trent Williams arrived early in time to watch last week’s Geelong v Collingwood AFL final at the MCG. He was impressed. “It almost felt like AI,” he said. “It was so many people, and I’d never really seen something like that. The fans are further away, and the way the stands are, the bowl shape, it’s very unique.”
The NFL’s presence in Melbourne is very real, however, for sports fans and brands. The game is almost sold out, with only VIP packages and a handful of roughly $600 resale seats left. The 18,000-capacity NFL fan festival at Melbourne Park – where access costs $49 per adult – is presented by a credit card company. Inside, the advertising is impossible to miss, including activations from a car brand, a trading card manufacturer and even a mayonnaise promising an “immersive American tailgate experience”.
Even usually territorial Australian sport executives have embraced the invasion, despite it falling in the middle of the AFL finals series. A fortuitous opening in the schedule emerged after Hawthorn defeated Fremantle last week, and the Western Bulldogs lost to Adelaide, and the MCG ground staff will have more than a week to prepare the surface for the Hawks’ preliminary final.
The AFL industry has enjoyed rubbing shoulders with the world’s sporting elite this week. The 49ers’ opponents for Friday’s 10.30am kick-off, the Los Angeles Rams, are owned by Kroenke Sports & Entertainment which also has in its stable Premier League champions Arsenal, 2023 NBA champions the Denver Nuggets, 2022 NHL winners the Colorado Avalanche and baseball franchise LA Angels, for whom a deal worth around US$4bn ($5.5m) was clinched last week.
after newsletter promotion
The “NFL legends and leaders lunch” at Crown casino on Wednesday was sponsored by Tabcorp, the betting company now headed by the former AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan. A table of 10 cost $3,750 for punters, but many – like the NFL Hall of Famer Jerry Rice and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell – were there as guests.
Goodell said at the event the NFL was in Australia because there are 9 million NFL fans in the country, 2 million of which only became fans in the past few years. “I think you’ll find that this will help accelerate that growth a little bit, but it also maybe will accelerate our growth into Asia a little bit,” he said. “I think this is a great opportunity for us to continue to be a global sport, and that means we have to get all over the globe.”
The NFL’s ambitions for flag football’s inclusion at the Brisbane 2032 Olympics are no secret, nor are the basic economics of the NFL’s visit. By tapping overseas governments for hosting fees, stimulating once neglected international markets, and providing cross-border platforms for brands, the behemoth of US sport can continue to eat.
NFL players – who watched with interest at the next-level stardom of Lionel Messi and co at this year’s World Cup – also understand the benefit of global exposure, while a growing number of celebrities and entertainers relish the NFL limelight in the Taylor Swift-Travis Kelce era.
New Jersey pop band the Jonas Brothers will provide Friday’s half-time show as part of a production likened by some proponents to a Super Bowl. But in week one of the season. And in Australia. The pop trio’s most famous song? Sucker.
Leave a Reply