‘Here to stay’: The numbers behind the NFL’s major Australian gamble

Ticket queues of 125,000 fans, more than 80 per cent of the MCG sold in the first wave and a local fan base that has grown by more than half in four years: the National Football League says its Australian gamble has been vindicated before a single down has even been played at September’s Rams-49ers opener.

The first regular-season match on Australian soil – the Los Angeles Rams hosting the San Francisco 49ers at 10.35am AEST on Friday, September 11 – anchors a multipronged commercial push that the league hopes will turn a relatively small Australian footprint into a significant revenue stream.

NFL Australia and New Zealand general manager Charlotte Offord told this masthead the league had locked in a “two-plus-one” multi-year contract with the Victorian government – two confirmed games over four years, with an option for a third – and grown its local fan base from 5.7 million to 8.8 million in four years.

“We don’t just enter a market and leave,” Offord said. “We come in to invest and stay.”

The league makes money from the Australian market in four ways: free-to-air broadcast rights, subscription streaming, sponsorships, and game-day economics, including a confidential cheque from the host state.

Seven Network holds the free-to-air rights and extended its deal in August 2025 to take Thursday Night Football live and free on Friday mornings. Seven’s 2024 NFL season coverage reached 4.7 million Australians, the network has said, and the Philadelphia Eagles’ Super Bowl LIX win pulled more than 2.6 million viewers across Seven and 7plus.

The terms are undisclosed but small against domestic codes: the AFL’s $4.5 billion deal with Seven and Foxtel runs to more than $600 million a year through 2031, and the NRL’s deal with Nine and Foxtel tops $400 million annually.

Then there’s subscription revenue: international streaming sits inside a 10-year deal with Foxtel parent company DAZN, which sells NFL Game Pass in Australia at $32.99 a month for Season Pro.

The Allan government beat off pitches from “multiple different states and cities”, Offord said. Melbourne’s status as “the major events capital”, the MCG’s 100,000-seat capacity and the walkability of the precinct were decisive.

The financial arrangement remains commercial-in-confidence, with Premier Jacinta Allan declining to disclose how much taxpayers are contributing. Visit Victoria chair Andy Penn, the former Telstra chief executive, has said the partnership would translate into jobs in a visitor economy worth about $40 billion a year.

Sport and major events minister Steve Dimopoulos said the deal