September 11, 2026 — 3:16pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from your saved list to add more. AAA It had many trappings of an AFL grand final: national anthems and patriotic displays, a vast array of entertainment, bright September sunlight, 100,021 fans paying hundreds of dollars each and
It had many trappings of an AFL grand final: national anthems and patriotic displays, a vast array of entertainment, bright September sunlight, 100,021 fans paying hundreds of dollars each and a vaster audience watching on screens.
But the 49ers v Rams game was unlike any other event that has visited these shores, or the MCG. Possibly excluding Taylor Swift.
Melbourne and the MCG were the hosts, and there were nods to Australian rites and traditions (e.g. Midnight Oil and a John Farnham cover), but our sporting cathedral was utterly taken over by the NFL and Americanised.
The MCG was transformed in every way, not just the rectangular playing field drawn inside the oval, but culturally.
Australian sport is pure sport with a smattering of entertainment. The NFL is an entertainment package, in which the game is central but only a portion of the offering.
This was a concert, replete with bands (Jonas Brothers at half-time, a Mariachi band), dancing troupes (including the Rams cheerleaders) between each of the dozens of breaks in the game, and thumping music. The PA system boomed with a wall of sound as loud as when Carlton piled on four early goals here against the Cats a week earlier.
It was as though the Rams’ privately owned SoFi Stadium – which is hosting the Olympics, and was built without public funds by the team’s billionaire owner Stan Kroenke – had been spirited across the Pacific and shape-shifted into the MCG.
When I visited SoFi as a guest of the Rams back in November, I wondered whether the lavish Hollywood-style show would be imported for this ground-breaking and ground-reconstructing event, or if the NFL would adapt to Australia’s purer sporting events.
Would they tone it down for Aussie audiences? They didn’t.
Not that the 100,000 minded the experience. The multitudes sang along to Sweet Caroline (“so good, so good”), to Mr Brightside, Be My Girl (“ooh-ahh”), and air-guitared for the famed riff of Seven Nation Army.
As one fan near me noted in the third “period,” a good number had been drinking since late morning; in that, it was more akin to a Boxing Day Test. No surprise that the Mexican wave circumnavigated the ground late in the game.
They oohed when players were legitimately clobbered, such as 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey, in the second term, and the red shirts erupted at the first San Francisco touchdown from quarterback Brock Purdy to wide receiver Mike Evans.
“WHOSE HOUSE?,” the PA yelled. “RAMS HOUSE” – I’d seen and heard the same exhortation at SoFi. Except that it wasn’t a Rams house. The 49ers contingent was clearly larger than the “home” team and had more to yell about as the victors, although it was more striking how many wore colours and shirts of the other 30 NFL teams.
Not since the preacher Billy Graham hot-gospelled here in 1959 has an American event attracted such attention or numbers (Graham drew 143,000). Not even Mason Cox.
The anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the US were acknowledged pre-game, as US Marines held up an American flag on the rectangle, and the ADF held the Australian flag.
Another oddity was that many of the 100,021, contrary to tradition, actually sang our national anthem, which had followed the Star Spangled Banner. Were they channelling America’s more conspicuous patriotism?
The NFL had sent their best, too, after negotiating a lucrative deal with the Victorian government (between $10 million and $15 million for this game and the next two), in the Rams, the Super Bowl favourites and California’s most storied franchise, the 49ers.
In the middle of this high-tempo, rapid-moving entertainment package, there was an NFL game, in which San Francisco upset their rivals 27-7, on the back of defence that disrupted LA’s champion quarterback Matt Stafford, as “Mr Irrelevant” Purdy found his new receiver Evans, De Marcus Robinson and Deebo Samuel for TDs.
Behind the glass, the NFL’s expansionist commissioner Roger Goodell was in what they called “the commissioner’s suite” with AFL chief executive Andrew Dillon and his chairman Craig Drummond. That pair had paid homage to the NFL’s boss back in April, flying back from Gather Round in Adelaide to meet with American sport’s papal figure.
Earlier, rugby league’s force-of-nature boss Peter V’landys was spotted leaving the Pullman, scene of the Sydney Swans’ shenanigans, to walk down the hill for the game.
What ideas for the futures of the AFL and NRL were germinating at the MCG on this remarkable late morning and afternoon? Netflix had streamed the game globally. Was that feasible for the football codes here?
Strangers to the AFL in the Sydney and Brisbane markets have proven more amenable to Sweet Caroline and Take Me Home, Country Roads than the traditional footy fans in Melbourne, Adelaide and Perth.
On this day, the NFL offered an entirely different version of a day at the footy. “You guys know how to party,” said the NFL’s ground announcer, Colleen Wolfe.
“Melbun,” as they called it, came to the party.
News, results and expert analysis from the weekend of sport sent every Monday. Sign up for our Sport newsletter.
Jake Niall is a Walkley award-winning sports journalist and chief AFL writer for The Age.Connect via X or email.From our partners
For more tech updates, stay tuned to our blog.
