NFL keen for Australia game to become annual fixture in 'strategic' market

MELBOURNE, Sept 1 : The National Football League (NFL) is looking to bring a game to Australia every season as part of its international strategy and sees the nation as a strategic growth market for American football, a senior executive told Reuters on Tuesday.

Australia hosts its first NFL game at the 100,000-seat Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) on September 11 with the LA Rams opening their season against the San Francisco 49ers in the first of a record nine-game international schedule across seven countries.

The MCG game is part of a multi-year contract with Australia's Victoria state, which includes two confirmed games over four years and the option for a third.

The timing of the second one is still to be decided but Gerrit Meier, managing director and head of NFL International, said the league's preference would be for annual games in Australia, much as Britain has had for most of the last two decades.

"I think that would be the plan, right?" Meier said in a video call from New York on Tuesday.

"Overall, we're working off the hypothesis that we need to make a commitment to a market ... We believe that at least one game per year should be something that we should be having in the markets that we commit to.

"And maybe over time, as we have, maybe, greater inventory, then maybe you play two games (per season) or so."

Meier said the longer-term scheduling of NFL games in Australia had to consider the players' experience, whether the clubs saw value in the journey and how satisfied the hosts would be with the economic impact. 

"The teams coming back, they need to be healthy. They need to have a great experience. It needs to be a great game because in the end it counts. It's not an exhibition game," he said.

The Victorian