San Francisco 49ers head coach addressed the team’s scheduled season opener in Melbourne, Australia on Monday at the NFL owners meetings, and his response was anything but a rallying cry. Asked what positives he could point to ahead of the cross-Pacific trip, Shanahan was brutally candid.
“Our goal to go 19 hours away. We’re going back in time or into future. … It is what it is. We’ll deal with it.”
The bluntness was very clear. Shanahan agreed that the league’s goal is to make the sport more popular around the world, but his complaint is based on how hard it is for his team to get things done. The time difference between Melbourne and Pacific Time is about 19 hours. This is the biggest time difference any NFL team has ever had to deal with for a regular season game. San Francisco will face the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday, September 10, at the iconic Melbourne Cricket Ground in what marks the NFL’s first-ever regular season game on Australian soil.
The timing problems aren’t just annoying, they could hurt your business. The 49ers are expected to travel more than 38,100 miles during the 2026 season, which would break the NFL record of about 37,000 miles set by the 2025 Los Angeles Chargers. And if reports of a potential Mexico City game also on the 2026 docket prove true, San Francisco could become the first team in league history to play two international games at vastly different hemispheres in the same season.
There is no doubt that the NFL wants to go global. Roger Goodell, the commissioner, has announced that there will be a record nine international games in 2026. These games will take place in four continents, seven countries, and eight stadiums. The league has long wanted to play games in Australia, and this season, they made a multiyear commitment to do so at the MCG in Melbourne.
But for Shanahan, the big picture of NFL expansion is secondary to preparing his team to compete in the brutal NFC West. When your division rivals are the Rams and Seahawks, and your season opener requires crossing the international date line, the romance of making history wears off quickly.
The 49ers will deal with it. Shanahan made that much clear. Whether they thrive because of it is another story entirely.
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