If Melbourne employers note an increase in sickies on a Friday morning in September, American football might well be to blame.
The MCG will host Australia’s first in-season NFL game on September 11, and demand for a piece of the action is high, with tickets for the game selling out in the first half hour of release.
Pubs and hotels across Melbourne are preparing for an influx of NFL fans from overseas and interstate to watch the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers.
Todd Gurley, a former Rams player, is in Melbourne as a Marriott Bonvoy ambassador ahead of the event, which is expected to attract a crowd of 100,000.
“I’ve talked to a lot of people; they’re just super-excited about it,” he said from the penthouse suite of the W Hotel. “I mean playing at the G is just legendary … I know everybody’s pumped.”
Gurley said the game was “a little bit early”, starting at 10.35am, a time aimed squarely at a US television audience, but said fans could expect a good contest in what would be the first NFL game of the season.
“The NFL did think highly of Melbourne to give them two good teams instead of sending two trash teams over here,” he said. “I would say that they got two winners.”
Gurley said Australian fans watching the game should be prepared for a long game that would last a minimum of four hours.
“It will be a lot of TV timeouts,” he said. “There will be hydration breaks out there, we call it, but it will give the fans more time to go grab a beverage.”
Gurley and fellow Marriott ambassador Dylan Alcott said they expected Australians to get into the spirit early, inspired by the tailgate parties at NFL games in the United States out of cars and trucks parked around the ground.
“I can safely say Australians and Melburnians don’t mind tailgating at 6am,” Alcott said. “They will find a way.”
There will be no public parking, and therefore no tailgating at the MCG car parks, but an NFL Kickoff Festival will be held at Melbourne Park with NFL exhibits, flag football clinics, watch parties and an American food village. The Glasshouse in Olympic Park will host Australia’s Best Tailgate.
Marmont restaurant at Crown will be a base for the Los Angeles Rams during the event, and owner Grant Smillie said the venue would show the game and then host an after-party for Rams fans.
“With the novelty of an early morning start, by 2pm there will be a lot of people looking for sustenance after having breakfast beers,” Smillie said. “I think it is going to be an unofficial public holiday.”
Over at the Waterside Hotel, manager Tommy Ellison said the pub was serving a special American-inspired menu of Buffalo chicken wings with blue cheese ranch, mozzarella sticks, spicy fried chicken burgers, glazed barbecue pork ribs and buckets of Budweiser beer.
“It used to be a bit of a niche sport for Australians to follow,” he said. “But people are really getting into it.”
This masthead revealed that the multi-year contract secured by the Victorian government is likely to cost taxpayers between $10 million and $15 million per game, but Ellison said he thought the price was worth it.
“The timing’s a bit weird,” he said. “It is very early on a Friday, so that does mean that people aren’t going to drink as they would on a Friday or Saturday night. From what we’re seeing here at least, I do believe it will be a really, really big weekend for Melbourne and for the economy.”
Data released by the state government shows fans from more than 35 countries have already bought tickets to the game, and almost 50 per cent of spectators at the MCG are expected to be from interstate or overseas.
Hotel occupancy in the Melbourne CBD is up 39 per cent for the night of the game compared to the same day last year.
Minister for Major Events Anthony Carbines said events such as the NFL game were “economic powerhouses”, filling hotels, supporting jobs and putting Victoria on the world stage.
The game will be screened as a standalone Thursday night football fixture in the United States, and Netflix’s global broadcast will reach more than 200 countries.
“When viewers see Melbourne on their screens, they book flights and plan their next holiday here,” Carbines said.
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