The San Francisco 49ers in 2026 are going overseas for a regular season game for the first time in 13 years.
The NFL on Thursday announced the 49ers will face the Los Angeles Rams in the first-ever regular season NFL game at in Melbourne, Australia. Their showdown will take place at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
“This is a terrific opportunity to continue to support the league in its mission to grow the game of football,” 49ers CEO Al Guido said in a statement released by the team. “We look forward to working with the NFL to benefit local Australian communities through sport.”
This comes as a bit of a surprise since 49ers owner Jed York recently told a reporter the club expected to play a regular season game in Mexico City. San Francisco played in Mexico City in 2022 and it appeared they were on track to head back there for a designated “home” game.
No game time or date has been announced yet. It figures a game in Australia would be the season opener given the 19-hour time difference from the West Coast to Australia, but there’s nothing official on that front.
It also figures the NFL wouldn’t send the 49ers to two different countries given the difficulties of playing internationally. However, it isn’t unprecedented for a team to play twice overseas. Last season the Minnesota Vikings played games in Ireland and England in consecutive weeks. A game in Australia with another game in Mexico City some amount of weeks later would surely be on the table with the 49ers’ popularity and the NFL’s desire to expand internationally.
LA will be the designated home team in the Australia matchup.
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This article originally appeared on Niners Wire: 49ers 2026 schedule will include historic NFL international game
Reporting by Kyle Madson, Niners Wire / Niners Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
