BRISBANE, Australia (AP) — A debut Down Under has been a long time coming for the NFL. It’s a good thing Aussies revel in the long game.
It’s fitting, too, that the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers will be playing their season-opening game next week at the Melbourne Cricket Ground — known locally as the MCG or, more commonly, just as The G.
At 100,000 capacity, it’s a big ground for a big occasion in a city that loves hosting big events. It’s where for almost 150 years Australia has been playing test cricket matches, which can run across five days yet still finish without a winner, and it’s the home of Australian rules football.
It has hosted the Olympics, Cricket World Cup finals, some of Taylor Swift’s biggest shows and even a Papal mass.
Established in 1853, The G has developed a revered place in Australian sports and cultural life. Australia’s premier venue will host the first of the NFL’s nine international games this season.
The NFL ran a bid process across multiple Australian states for the debut Down Under and it was the MCG, being so cherished and so close to downtown, that sealed it. Along with Melbourne’s success delivering high-profile events including the Australian Open — the season-opening tennis major at the adjoining Melbourne Park — and the Australian F1 Grand Prix.
“Melbourne as a city really stood out, having a huge stadium of that size, that caliber, that historical nature, in the middle of the city,” Charlotte Offord, GM for NFL Australia/New Zealand, told The Associated Press. “It just felt like a bit of a no-brainer.”
A cathedral, a colosseum ... it’s not just cricket
Former Prime Minister John Howard, a self-described cricket tragic, once characterized the MCG as a place of worship.
In a 1996 speech at The G, Howard recounted how he’d mentioned to the Catholic archbishop that after visiting St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “I was going to one of the spiritual centers, the true temporal shrine and sporting shrine, not only of Melbourne but also of Australia.”
“Without any doubt the Melbourne Cricket Ground is the greatest sporting arena in our nation, and I think probably without comparison anywhere in the world.”
It helps that Melburnians are renowned for a love of sport. It can create the kind of atmosphere at The G that cricket icon Dennis Lillee, the mustachioed and hairy chested fast bowler of the 1970s and 80s, compared with the ancient arena in Rome.
“To me the MCG is the people’s ground,’’ Lillee told Fox Sports before the Boxing Day test in 2014. It’s not about the facilities, “It’s the people. Even though the wicket was flat and the ball was old and dead, the crowd lifted you. They would go to watch ant racing. But for crowd involvement as an arena, a coliseum, the MCG was my favorite.’’
It was a theme the late, great Shane Warne embraced, too. So much so that a big part of the homegrown cricket star’s state memorial service was staged at the stadium in 2022 and a stand was renamed in his honor.
Taylor Swift Effect
A week and many time zones away from that famous kiss with Travis Kelce after the Chiefs beat the 49ers in the 2024 Super Bowl, Swift told the crowd after three sold-out shows on her Eras tour at the MCG: “Melbourne, you are the love of my life. I cannot believe you, what you have done.”
“Ninety-six thousand people the first night, 96,000 people the second night, 96,000 people tonight,” she said. “All of that, those are all the biggest shows I’ve ever played on a tour and you did it three times!”
Swift’s influence has helped grow the popularity of American football in Australia. Girls and young women account for a big proportion of the NFL’s growing fanbase in Australia.
“I’d put that down to, one, flag football and girls playing,” Offord said. “I’d also put it down to the Taylor Swift effect. We don’t hide behind that at all — she has done great things for the league in terms of her ability to bring a new demographic of people into the fold.”
A quick history of the MCG
The G has been home to Australian rules football since 1859, and has a pride of place in cricket history. Australia hosted England there in the very first official cricket test in 1877 — the forerunner to the Ashes contests between the two countries — and the first one-day international in 1971. The 1992 and 2015 World Cup finals were decided here.
It was the main stadium for the 1956 Olympics and the 2006 Commonwealth Games.
The MCG hosted baseball as early as 1888. In 1914, the New York Giants and Chicago White Sox played there.
While high-profile soccer, rugby union, rugby league and Gaelic football games have been contested at the G, American football’s previous exposure to the venue has been limited. A 1908 game featuring teams from a visiting U.S. Navy fleet is one example.
As well as sports and concerts, the G has hosted the armed forces. In World War II, it housed a U.S. Army Air Forces depot called Camp Murphy, a regiment of the U.S. Marine Corps in 1943 and Royal Australian Air Force personnel.
Big crowds
American evangelist Billy Graham pulled the biggest crowd ever at the G — more than 130,000 in 1959. The biggest attendance for an Australian rules match is a touch under 122,000. By the mid-90s annual attendances for events at the MCG exceeded 3.5 million. The record aggregate crowd for a cricket match is 373,691 — across five days of the Ashes test in 2024.
Only Ed Sheeran has pulled a bigger concert crowd than Swift — his 107,243 in 2023 is the MCG record.
A sporting precinct
Situated in Yarra Park, the MCG is a 15-minute walk along the river to the city center and easily accessible by trams and trains.
The capacity is now 100,024, including 95,000 seated. The playing arena is oval shaped and is 174-meters (190 yards) at its longest length and 149 meters (163 yards) at his widest width. The rectangular NFL field will easily fit within the arena, but organizers say there won’t be too much “dead space.”
“We obviously have a lot of extra players that come with our game, (plus) cheerleaders, entertainment, equipment,” Offord said. “You’ll be surprised at (how little) space is actually left.”
Will Bryce, head of the NFL’s youth academy in Australia, said the MCG has an “aura you can just feel when you step in.”
“It’s going to be an incredible atmosphere,” he said. “It’s going to be a great collaboration between the NFL and everyone else involved.”
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John Pye, The Associated Press
