Thursday night's matchup between the Super Bowl favorite Los Angeles Rams and their NFC West rival, the San Francisco 49ers, features a lot of firsts and small records for the NFL.
For one, with the proceedings taking place in Melbourne, it's the first-ever NFL game played in Australia. It's also the largest travel distance by far, with both the Rams and 49ers traveling roughly 8,000 miles from their respective headquarters. For all intents and purposes, we are talking about an NFL game literally happening on the other side of the world, dearest readers.
That's what's funny. When I say "Thursday night," I'm talking purely in relation to the United States. But in Melbourne, during this game, it's already Friday morning. That might also be an NFL
first: a game technically taking place on another day of the week compared to the day for the viewing base of fans in the United States. When the Rams and 49ers kick things off in Melbourne, it will be around 10:30 a.m. local time. That seems ... odd and extremely early, but it's also kind of what you have to do when most of your audience still resides in the United States.
Officially, if we're talking about Eastern Time in the United States, Melbourne, Australia is 14 hours ahead and, ironically, is in the Australian Eastern Time zone. If we're talking about the time difference between San Francisco and Los Angeles, which are both in the United States' Pacific Time Zone, Melbourne is actually 17 hours ahead.
Phew. Kudos to the NFL and Netflix for finding a time that would work for all parties involved here, where people could actually reasonably watch this Australia pro football game in both countries.
This article originally appeared on For The Win: What time is it for Rams-49ers in Melbourne, Australia?
