The longest road trip in NFL history has brought the San Francisco 49ers and the Los Angeles Rams to Melbourne, Australia, for a season opener before more than 100,000 fans packed into the Southern Hemisphere’s largest stadium.
The NFC West rivals are playing at Melbourne Cricket Ground, a longtime home to Australian rules football, only with two starkly different approaches to the epic 16-hour journey.
The Niners have spent the past week in Australia. The Rams joined them just 28 hours before kickoff.
Stick around for live coverage as we count down to their debut Down Under.
Here's the latest:
A primetime NFL showdown in the US is a morning affair in Australia
One of the biggest challenges for two U.S.-based NFL teams playing a game in Australia has always been the time difference and sheer length of travel.
Today’s Rams-49ers showdown will kick off at 8:35 p.m. EDT — standard for a big game in the U.S. — but will actually begin at 10:35 a.m. in Melbourne on Friday because of the 14-hour time difference.
The two teams are taking vastly different approaches to the nearly 8,000-mile trip.
The Rams left Southern California on Tuesday night and arrived in Australia on Thursday, roughly 24 hours before the game.
The Niners have spent a week in Melbourne, having arrived last Friday for what is expected to be the first of several NFL regular-season games in a country and venue traditionally associated with cricket and Australian rules football.
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