The NFL plays its first game in Australia on Thursday night, with the San Francisco 49ers and Los Angeles Rams meeting at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. It is an NFC West game on neutral ground, it streams on Netflix rather than airing on television, and kickoff is 8:35 p.m. ET. The Rams, the current Super Bowl favorites, are laying 3.5.
How to watch 49ers vs Rams in Australia
This one is Netflix only in the United States. There is no broadcast channel and no cable simulcast, so a Netflix subscription is the requirement. Kickoff is 8:35 p.m. ET Thursday, which is Friday lunchtime in Melbourne.
The Rams are the designated home team even though the game is on neutral ground. Melbourne is one of nine international stops on the 2026 schedule, a league record.
The matchup
The travel is the story. Two division rivals who know each other well are playing roughly 8,000 miles from either home stadium, and the teams took different approaches to when they flew and how they handled the time change. That is the sort of variable that does not show up in a spread.
The Rams are the market favorite to win Super Bowl LXI, which makes this the highest profile road opener of the week even though it is technically their home game.
Prediction and odds
Rams -3.5 and the over. A 48.5 total is one of the higher numbers on the board, and divisional openers between familiar offenses tend to move faster than the opening weekend average. Los Angeles is the better team on paper, but a field goal and a half is a thin margin for a game with this much travel noise in it.
Our pick: Rams 27, 49ers 23.
The bottom line
The first NFL game ever played in Australia, streaming on Netflix, between the Super Bowl favorite and a division rival that has troubled them before. Set a reminder, because there is no channel to stumble onto.