Can American Football and the NFL disrupt Australia’s saturated sporting market?

Among the almost 100,000 people who will file into the MCG on Friday morning for the first regular National Football League game held in Australia will be a fan almost no one has heard of watching with a quiet sense of satisfaction.

That’s because Wessley McGrath, a retired 66-year-old electricity worker, was responsible for launching American Football in Australia 42 years ago when he co-founded the Waverley Raiders, which played 19 games against other Sydney teams in its first year.

Now known as the University of NSW Bondi Raiders, the team is part of a plan by the sport’s administrators to make American Football as popular as soccer, basketball or even netball.

Friday morning’s sell-out game between the Los Angeles Rams and the San Francisco 49ers is driving interest in a game which the NFL reckons already has 9 million Australian fans. In four years more than 100,000 school children have played a non-contact version of the game, Flag Football, and equipment has been promised to 500 schools. An NFL training program for high school students has opened on the Gold Coast.

“We’re inundated by people who want to play,” said Wade Kelly, the chief executive of American Football Australia.

Mr McGrath, who watched his first NFL game, the 1973 Super Bowl, on television a week after it was played, says he and his friends were laughed at for playing in makeshift pads and green NFL jerseys he bought on a trip to America.

“Australia has come a long way,” he said. “It’s like State of Origin on steroids.”

NFL theme park

American culture is everywhere in Australia, from television screens to radio stations, fast-food outlets, clothing brands and cars. Whether the NFL can turn the juggernaut of American sport into a mainstream Australia activity like basketball, which has 1.3 million players, is an open question.

The NFL has signalled that it sees sports-mad Australia as a promising market for its plans to take the game global, in the same way some English soccer teams have more fans in China than London.

“This is something that’s an investment in this market and we believe that this is long term,” NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said earlier in the year.

Central Melbourne has been turned into a celebration of the NFL for the first round of the season.

The Town Hall and Flinders St station have been lit up in the teams’ colours. Melbourne Park, the city’s main tennis precinct, has been turned into an NFL theme park. This morning thousands of people gathered in Federation Square to watch Seattle Seahawks beat the New England Patriots 13-10 on a giant TV screen.

“It’s in the middle of the AFL finals and you can’t really tell walking about the city,” said Thomas McMillan, who started an NFL podcast four years ago in Melbourne, to the amusement of his friends. “It’s incredible.”

Historic rivalry

The Rams arrived in Melbourne around 7am Friday on a private flight, timing that caused some fans to question their interest in experiencing the Victorian capital.

The Rams’ 50-or-so players are expected to go to sleep at 3-5pm and wake up between midnight and 2am. They will return to Los Angeles soon after the game finishes, while the Australian and New Zealand teams play a demonstration Flag Football game at Melbourne Park.

The 49ers arrived last week, allowing them to adjust to the 17-hour time difference. Coach Kyle Shanahan, who is in Australia for the first time, said he hadn’t seen much of the city, had woken up at 1am and sometimes was unsure what day it was.

“I would love to say I’m getting out and experiencing Australia and I’m sure if I did, I’d think it’s awesome,” he said. “We travel a lot, and when we do, we don’t really do anything.”

For NFL aficionados, the game is a big deal. The teams are from the same division, the West, and will only play each other once more this season. Same-division games are the fastest and most direct path to the NFL playoffs because topping the division guarantees a spot in the playoffs, or finals, on their home ground.

They also represent the historic competition between the two great Californian cities.

“The rivalry is huge,” says Danny Webb, a co-host of the Any Given Sunday podcast with McMillan. “The fact they are playing this game on Australian soil, I never thought it would happen.”

Victoria reportedly beat Sydney, Perth, South Korea and Japan for the game by offering the NFL $15 million.

Complicated

How many people at the MCG will understand what is going on is unclear.

American Football, once known as gridiron, may be the world’s most complicated team ball sport. For many fans, that is the attraction. In what has been referred to as a “billion-dollar human chessboard”, because of the players’ high salaries, the coaches prepare elaborate plays for different situations.

Each play averages four to six seconds, split by a 40-second break, meaning it can take over three hours to complete a 60-minute game. Each side has four chances to move the ball 10 yards.

If they fail, the other side gets the ball. There are five ways to score points.

Dozens of Australians play college football. A handful have made it to the NFL, mostly as the punters who kick the ball far down the field. The top Australian is Jordan Mailata, a former junior rugby league player now with the Philadelphia Eagles, who last year became the first Australian to play in a winning Super Bowl side.

The biggest obstacle to the sport’s growth in Australia is, according to Kelly, expertise and space. A lack of coaches, referees and playing fields makes it hard to keep up with demand, fuelled by social media accounts that have introduced a new generation of children to the sport.

“We haven’t got that multi-generational knowledge about the game,” Kelly says. “It’s not easy for mums and dads to jump the fence and help coach.”

Flag Football is the sport’s great growth plan. Similar to touch rugby, the non-contact, five-a-side game will played at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles. Australia’s teams, which competed internationally for the first time two years ago, still have a chance to qualify, creating a opportunity for young Australian Rules or rugby league players to become Olympic athletes.

One of the aspiring Olympians is Amelie Prosser-Shaw, who played for the Greater Western Sydney Giants AFLW team. In June she was awarded a $500,000 flag football scholarship to the University of Texas at Arlington, the second-oldest university in the state.

As for McGrath, the pioneer of American Football in Australia, he played one year and then retired. Co-founder Stephen Jones died in a motorcycle accident three weeks after the last game of the season.

He couldn’t bring himself to play without his close friend. “It didn’t feel the same,” he said.

If you want a ticket, some are available for resale. But they will cost $715 if you are prepared to sit alone and $910 each for small groups.