The National Football League will set a regular season game in Australia for the first time, at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, as part of a multi-year promise to play in Victoria capital from 2026.
Peter O’Reilly, head of NFL International, said the Los Angeles Rams were the designated team at home for a 172 -year -old sporting coliseum at a meeting in New Orleans, where the Super Bowl took place on the week between The Kansas City Chiefs and the Philadelphia Eagles.
No time or time of kick-off was provided but the game could potentially quarrel with the opening week of the AFL Finals, given the NFL begins in the first week of September. O’Reilly said the deal did not happen without AFL support.
“It wouldn’t have happened without the AFL cooperation as an important player in this conversation … That relationship could only exceed playing [at the MCG]”O’Reilly said. “It’s an incapacitated league and we can learn from each other. Partnerships and relationships are important to us.”
The NFL said Rams’ opponents in the 100,000-seat areas will be announced in the future but it appears that it will not be the Eagles, which has been tabbed as the “likely” candidate to a Herald Sun report on Sunday.
“This is an impossible because it is the Rams and we are at home,” Eagles -owned Jeffrey Lurie said in a rare existence on Monday night of Super Bowl Media Night. “We don’t give up on a game at home.”
According to the NFL scheduling formula, Los Angeles folded to deal with the Eagles in Philadelphia during 2026. The seven confirmed home opponents on the Rams schedule were the Chiefs, the Arizona Cardinals, San Francisco 49ers , the Seattle Seahawks, the Dallas Cowboys, the New York Giants and the Los Angeles Charger. They will also post a NFC North team that ends with the same division rank in 2025.
The Eagles have emerged as a logical candidate for a game in Melbourne because they share international marketing rights in Australia with RAMs as part of the NFL’s Global Markets program. In addition, their star -off tackle Jordan Malaya, who grew up playing the Rugby League and reached the NFL through the International Player Pathway Program, could be the first Australia who won a Super Bowl if they beat the Chiefs on Sunday night.
The announcement marked the latest expansion of the NFL’s global footsteps. The league first launched its international series in 2005, since bringing more than 50 regular games to London, Munich, Frankfurt, Mexico City and Toronto. This year the Eagles and the Green Bay Packers met at Sao Paulo for the first NFL game in South America – Philadelphia was the designated team at home – while Miami Dolphins were named hosts for the first game in Spain next season at Bernabéu Stadium.
Lurie said she fully accepts NFL’s international ambitions, but cannot sign off giving an important home game a second time in three years.
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“We have fully endorsed the globalization of the sport,” Lurie said. “Wanting -We liked our superstar from Australia, we’re a natural team to play there, we’re a marketing partner in Australia and New Zealand, we’re one of the designated partners. So if there’s a chance to be a team Far from it, let’s embrace it. “
Most eight games per season will be played outside the United States next season as part of the international series agreement. The NFL has confirmed five of these to this day: three in London, one in Berlin and one in Madrid. But a first regular game season in the Asia-Pacific region-the NFL conducted a pre-season Sydney game in 1999-represents the most ambitious league of the league to the present.
“Expanding Melbourne, a beautiful city with a rich sports history, outlines our ambitions to become a global sport and accelerate international growth,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell. “With the Victoria state government … We look forward to making history in what is an important market for the NFL and a significant next step in expanding our international footsteps.”
