Gerard Whatley's Melbourne NFL Game Opener (11.09.26)
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What makes the MCG a unique venue for hosting the NFL?
Welcome to the NFL on SEN. Good morning. Welcome inside the MCG on a special morning for our sporting capital. I'm not sure I've ever seen the old girl quite like this. One of the great birthrights of being a Melburnian is the routine pilgrimage to our temple down the road. For six months of the year we're here every week indulging our AFL obsessions and we know the days that we most cherish. Easter Monday, Anzac Day, the King's birthday and the big finals. We know exactly how the G will feel. The look, the feel, the rhythms and the melody. We know the sounds of the Collingwood crowd and the energy of the Carlton faithful and the tension of a close preliminary final. In summer, we come for the cricket.
The bars are full and the festive cheer infuses the cheers from the terraces.
How has the MCG’s history shaped Melbourne’s sporting culture?
The semi-regular events draw us in. State of origin rugby league with its sizzle and pyrotechnics. A Bledisloe test from time to time. Exhibition soccer where the jerseys are real but the action usually bloodless. The football is best when it's a World Cup qualifier but worse when it involves Peter Hoare. And then from time to time the MCG is different. Taylor Swift staged a near cultural revolution that shook the stands to their foundations and filled the air so joyously. The Indian fans provided an entirely different soundtrack at a T20 World Cup match against Pakistan that owed as much to geopolitics as sports. Kieran McCann won an unforgettable marathon at a Commonwealth Games that put a lump in every throat.
The WWE even took over here one year as The Undertaker slammed Triple H with the stayed members stand as the backdrop. Our forefathers gathered here for the Olympics and watched Ron Clark burn his arm and Betty Cuthbert scorched the track. Some of our grandparents can tell us stories of the evangelist Billy Graham, or further back, the American troop occupation of World War II, Camp Murphy, and the hybrid game of Austus. And deeper in the recesses of history is baseball between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants. The story of the MCG is in so many ways the story of Melbourne itself. And today the MCG looks like never before. Painted and dressed for the National Football League. An idea 15 years in the making.
At the punt road ends, they've painted the turf red in honour of the San Francisco 49ers. The Los Angeles Rams planted the seeds. that have taken deep roots at the Ponsford stand end in blue and yellow. Out on Barassi Way and on the walk down from the Pullman, there's every NFL jersey you could imagine. There's a one-hour queue to get into the biggest merch store ever erected in the Parklands. What began as a subculture inspired by Don Lane has become an essential part of our sporting passion building to this moment. This week has burst with an energy fuelled by live sites and events, perhaps eclipsing those typically associated with the AFL Grand Final, Melbourne Cup Week, the Formula One Grand Prix and the Australian Open.
And now it brings us inside for the main event. A regular season game between bitter and storied rivals on Australian soil. As if Collingwood and Carlton were drawn at gather rounds. They don't really get it back in the States and how could they? But there are 100,000 people bound for this ground on a morning of a standard work day. There's nothing standard about this day. It's about the most Melbourne thing I can think of. There's something special about it, all right. I've had the privilege of calling the past nine Super Bowls and connecting us to the biggest annual sporting event on the calendar. I can make the case sitting here that what's happening around the ground is bigger than any Super Bowl that I've attended.
And today we sit here in our regular SEN broadcast box about to call the NFL in our own backyard. It's enough to make you burst with emotion and pride. So wherever you are, in the stands or the surrounding parklands, on the train, in the car, at home, or unlucky enough to be at work, welcome to the MCG for week one of the NFL season as the Los Angeles Rams are about to host the San Francisco 49ers in the sporting capital of the world, Melbourne, Australia.
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Chapters
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