Everything you need to know ahead of NFL Melbourne

The San Francisco 49ers are taking on the Los Angeles Rams at the MCG, the first NFL regular-season game to be held in Australia. Here's everything you need to know. American Football will roll into the MCG for a regular-season NFL match for the first time on Friday. The San Francisco 49ers will take on the Los Angeles Rams, who are the nominal home team for the game. This will be the first regular-season NFL game ever hosted in Australia, although American Football matches have taken place in the country before. That is what time kick-off will be in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and the ACT. In the Northern Territory and South Australia, that is a 10:05am kick-off. In Western Australia, kick-off will be 8:35am. This is to cater for the Thursday night television audience in the United States, with a New York kick-off time of 8:35pm, while in LA the game will get underway at 5:35pm. If you are going to the game, the gates open at 7am local time, with access to the Yarra Park precinct, which the NFL has dubbed the NFL Stadium Campus. The Rams are the home team and come into the season as one of the favourites for this year's Super Bowl, with a stacked offence and miserly defence. If you think the Rams sound familiar but the LA bit is confusing you, that's because the team has moved around a bit. The team was formed in 1936 as the Cleveland Rams, moved to LA in 1946, but then shifted to St Louis in 1995, where they stayed for 20 years. They are two-time Super Bowl Champions, winning their most recent in 2021. They play at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The 49ers have always expected to reach the play-offs at an absolute minimum and will think they can do so again, despite a season beset by injuries last year. Formed in 1944, the 49ers have always been based in the Bay area, although they currently play outside San Francisco at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara. They have won five Super Bowls, but have not won one since 1994, despite appearing in three Super Bowls since then, most recently in 2023. The game will be available to watch in Australia on Fox Sports/Kayo or on free-to-air on Channel Seven or 7Plus. If you'd rather watch the game live, as of Monday, there are still tickets available, both standing and seated, for the game at the MCG. Heading into the 2026 season, there have been 62 regular-season NFL games played away from the USA. Starting in 2005 with Mexico City, the NFL has gradually expanded its global reach, with games in nine different cities so far, with two more added in 2026. Melbourne, Paris and Rio de Janeiro join London, Mexico City, Toronto, Berlin, Frankfurt, Munich, São Paulo and Madrid in hosting regular-season matches. The idea is to spread the gospel and increase the global presence of a league that has no international competition outside of America. Here's a pub quiz stat for you — the MCG will become the fifth stadium to host an NFL game and the opening/closing ceremony of an Olympic Games. The Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum , Berlin's Olympiastadion , London's Wembley and the Estádio do Maracanã in Rio de Janeiro have all hosted an Olympic Games opening ceremony, as did the MCG in 1956. The Stade de France will join it on that list when it hosts its first game later in the season. Given the Rams are the home team, they will now have hosted matches at two different Olympic stadiums, having played at the Coliseum between 1946-1979 and 2016-2019. Perhaps less surprisingly, the MCG is the first stadium to have hosted a Cricket World Cup final and an NFL regular-season game, so there is that.led the league with 4,707 passing yards and 46 passing touchdowns last season, with just eight interceptions. That was one reason why the Rams' offence was the best in the entire league, averaging 30.5 points per game last season. The potential issue is that Stafford is now 38 years old and has historically struggled to back up productive passing seasons in the past.was recently polled as the number one player in the NFL by his peers, and it's easy to see why. The 30-year-old defensive end led the league in sacks and tackles for loss last season for the Browns and his acquisition fills a gaping hole that was ruthlessly exposed as the Rams struggled down the stretch in 2025. , are coming off serious injuries from last season, so all eyes will be on how they front up when they suit back up this year. On the defensive side, the 49ers pass rush is a genuine concern, especially if Bosa can't return from the ACL injury that ended his season, which means former Dallas Cowboywill be desperate to stay fit for long enough to really get into a rhythm this season. Last year the young quarterback started just nine games and managed a TD/INT ratio of 20/10. That's too many interceptions for an elite quarterback and, given the addition of quality wide receiversshouldn't need to be thrown to as many times as he was last year. The running back had an astonishing 102 receptions — the sixth most of any player in the league — for 924 yards and seven touchdowns last season. That's in addition to his day job of running with the ball, where he had 1,202 yards from 311 rushes for 10 touchdowns, the eighth most rushing yards of anyone in the league.