The NFL's Australia Game Is a Bridge Too Far

The league's plan to send the Rams and 49ers to Australia is just the latest attempt at growing the game that will have an adverse effect on the overall product.

Under commissioner Roger Goodell, the NFL has aggressively expanded its slate of international games. | Mark J. Rebilas-Imagn Images

When it comes to the NFL creating a schedule for the San Francisco 49ers, there are only two options: Either one of the most amenable slates in football or a tribute to an ancient slog on foot from 14th century Kamchatka to Yakutsk in the middle of cold, dead winter. 

Kyle Shanahan was right when he went off on the NFL’s plan to schedule the 49ers in the season opener…in Australia…telling reporters at the coach’s breakfast this week, “I don’t see any pro.” He added sarcastically that he was “so fired up. That was our goal, to travel 19 hours away to play a game.” Because the 49ers’ Australia game is the first week of the season, there was no option to request a bye like most teams who travel internationally get the courtesy of doing. The 49ers are going to effectively lose a travel day and stuff a group of 52 poor souls who just suffered the equivalent of a high speed car accident on a plane for 15 hours, muscles throbbing, into airline seats. Then, play again roughly seven to 10 days later.  

When taken in isolation, this appears like another international money grab and fantasy ambassadorship soiree for wealthy owners. Despite the fact that Formula 1 racing is still searched 600,000 times more per year than NFL football in the United Kingdom and the Super Bowl outdrew England’s dart throwing championships by less than a million viewers, there is still an effort to grind out a developing fanbase after more than a decade of increasingly elaborate (and well-meaning, and, yes, successful regardless of scale) efforts. When viewed that way, it’s hard to imagine a hoard of Australian converts from an island nation that is smaller in population than the state of Texas springing up like struck oil all of a sudden and make the league’s efforts seem sensible in the here and now. 

But when taken in conjunction with the not-so-subtle push made by owners for a full 18-game season (which also took center stage this week and will frustratingly come at the cost of a developmental preseason game necessary to acclimate an incoming rookie class and keep the general product from looking like an inaugural tee ball practice), it’s another clear sign that the NFL doesn’t see the product as aching, delicate and entirely combustible like you and I do. We can add, for that matter, the predictable posturing between the league and its officials during labor negotiations. Even pretending there is a desire to go into a season with sub Division I collegiate NFL referees is ignoring the fact that experienced officials can not only run a game more efficiently but keep it safer. 

While it’s not the league’s job to keep the 49ers upright all the way to the finish line, the team is sending two of its best aging offensive stars—Christian McCaffrey and Mike Evans—on the NFL’s equivalent of the William Reid Stowe voyage before a majority of Americans set their first fantasy football lineup. We just came off a playoff run in which Bo Nix couldn’t make it to the AFC Championship game. In which Justin Herbert squeezed into the playoffs with a pair of county tax assessors as his left and right tackles after everyone else got injured. In which Josh Allen played through the postseason on a broken foot. A season in which Joe Burrow played eight games. In which the Chiefs missed the playoffs and Patrick Mahomes tore his ACL. In which Daniel Jones tried to play a game on a broken fibula and eventually tore his Achilles amid a Colts losing streak that saw an 8–2 team miss the postseason (but not before turning to a 44-year-old Philip Rivers for help). 

I’m on record as being something of a football isolationist when it comes to sharing NFL games with other countries, especially on opening weekend and especially matchups that will have particular meaning when it comes to penning the story of the season. I thought the foray into Brazil, which robbed home games from some of the NFL’s most loyal fanbases, was abhorrent from an optical perspective but also when it comes to the health of the game. 

A brutal game preceded by international travel difficulties. The Eagles lost the following week to a Falcons team that missed the playoffs. The Packers barely beat an Anthony Richardson-led Colts team in a game where Richardson threw three interceptions. 

International fans deserve access to professional football. But the Australia trip is a flight too far if we’re considering the holistic health of the product. Another season of backup referees is a risk too great. An 18th game, no matter how the NFLPA tries to claw back some semblance of power, is a shove too stiff. 

By frontloading all of these international affairs, by the way, the NFL is essentially ensuring that a fanbase outside of the U.S. has the greatest percentage chance of seeing relatively healthy football being played before sending everyone back, exhausted and jetlagged, to perform in the matinee for the fans who’ve been dialed in since Day 1. Kyle Shanahan was right when he said he saw few benefits to all of this.