Sean McVay Doesn’t Want Rams in Australia Again, But He’s Not Alone

On Thursday, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay was asked how his team has processed the Week 1 loss to the San Francisco 49ers. After referencing ‘Men in Black’ and saying, “It's almost like you try to do the ‘Men in Black’ thing where you say, ‘Hey, I don't remember what happened,” McVay said, “We're not playing in Australia ever again, I hope.”

McVay immediately followed that up with, “Not because it wasn't a great atmosphere; that'll get taken out of context.”

Spoiler Alert: It did, in fact, get taken out of context.

This is a pretty wild statement by McVay. The Rams have the global marketing rights in Australia! The organization has made 15 trips there in the past five years!

Can’t imagine this will go down well with the Australian natives who already seemed to prefer the Niners. https://t.co/nKy7PQfdi7
— Alex Sherman (@sherman4949) September 18, 2026

While the 49ers made the trip to Australia a team-bonding experience, the Rams treated it solely like a business trip. They arrived in Australia a little more than 24 hours before the game, while the 49ers had been there almost a week.

However, McVay’s quote isn’t about Australia itself, the atmosphere, or the fans. An argument can be made that the Rams poorly handled the travel before the game. “It certainly wasn’t about embracing,” said McVay after the game. ““We thought that was the best plan of attack in terms of our approach. That didn’t have anything to do with us not wanting to embrace that.”

Last season, the Philadelphia Eagles took a similar approach when they made the nine-hour flight to Sao Paulo, Brazil. “We’re going to Brazil to play. That’s what it is, and we’re excited about it,” said Nick Sirianni at the time. “The nine-hour flight is what it is, or whatever that’s going to be. Now, control what you can control.”

Australia Presented Unique Challenges for Rams, 49ers

The logistics of playing in Australia were always going to be difficult. While it made the most sense to do it in Week 1, that doesn’t mean the Rams weren’t taken out of their rhythm in terms of their weekly preparation. The Rams felt those effects on the front end of the trip while the 49ers felt it on the back end.

When Kyle Shanahan found out that the 49ers would be playing in Australia, he wasn’t pleased, noting that there wasn’t any upside to it. “No, not at all,” said Shanahan. “It's cool for the league globally. As far as the teams doing it, there's not much benefit to it.”

After the game, Shanahan noted that he also didn’t want to come back to Australia. “Nothing against Australia, just don't like to travel,” Shanahan said.

NFL Had Plenty of Reasons to View Australia as a Success

From the league’s perspective, the game in Australia was a success. The game was basically a sellout with over 100,000 fans in attendance, ranking as the seventh-most attended regular-season game in NFL history. It also averaged 18.5 million viewers in the United States, ranking it among the top three most-streamed Thursday primetime NFL games. In Australia, it was the most-watched NFL game ever.

That doesn’t say ‘don’t come back.’

The NFL has increasingly pushed the boundaries when it comes to the international slate. In 2026, the NFL is set to play a record-breaking nine international games in seven different countries. It’s one thing for the Jaguars to play in London. A plane trip from Jacksonville to London is just three more hours than Jacksonville to San Francisco. The trip from the East Coast to Europe is very similar to a trip from the East Coast to the West Coast. However, whereas the Rams flew 7.5 hours to London from Baltimore last season, the flight to Melbourne, Australia was almost 16 hours.

Sean McVay Isn’t Alone in His Frustration With International Travel

McVay may have taken the brunt of the criticism for his comment on Thursday, but he’s not the only coach in the NFL to have some level of disdain for the travel. He’s not even the only coach from that game to voice his displeasure. Green Bay Packers head coach Matt LaFleur took criticism in 2022 for being irritated by the drastic change in routine when his team went to London.

At the end of the day, coaches are creatures of habit, and an international trip forces them to throw all of that out the window. McVay’s comment will receive the most attention because of how poorly the Rams played in the game and how they handled the trip. However, his feelings aren’t unique by any means. The 49ers won the game by 20, and even Shanahan had little interest in coming back. That should speak to the challenges that the travel logistics present to NFL teams.

As the Rams prepare for Week 2, they will be happy to be back in their normal preparation routine. They’ll return home to SoFi Stadium, with the New York Giants having to make the long trip to the West Coast. For McVay, the focus now is getting the Rams back to their normal process.

“Let's go prepare the right way,” said McVay. “Let's have great focus and concentration. Let's have a great energy and an edge in which we prepare and compete, and then let's go be ready to go against a really damn good football team.”

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