MELBOURNE, Australia — On Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Rams embarked on one of the most uncommon international journeys the NFL has seen. For the league’s first-ever game in Australia, they decided to spend as little time in Melbourne as possible.The Rams flew overnight on Tuesday, following their third practice of the week, and arrived Thursday morning local time after a 17-hour time change. In 28 hours, they’d be kicking off their season at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. And within two hours of the game ending, they’ll be on another 15-hour flight back to Los Angeles.They’ll spend about as much time traveling to and from Melbourne as they will in the city itself.Their approach is the opposite of the San Francisco 49ers’, who are spending close to a week in Melbourne in order to adjust to the local time.The NFC West rivals received different sets of feedback from their science and research teams, and they realize that, right or wrong, Week 1’s result will give the nation an answer as to which approach was better.“What gives me confidence is I’m not going to really make it a big deal,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “It’s, ‘Hey, this is what the reality is. We’ve got a long way to go, but let’s be ready to rock when that three-hour window that we’re allotted comes.’”The 49ers consulted everyone from sleep experts to coaches who routinely play matches in far-away locales. But really, their approach comes from experience.“People are probably going to speculate after the game, ‘Well, this was better than the other,’” 49ers offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said. “But, at the end of the day, we’re going to go out there to play.“It’s an unprecedented situation. We believe in the way we’re doing it. They believe in the way they’re doing it, and we’re going to play the game.”Why Sean McVay’s travel strategy might work for the RamsNate Atkins and Johnny SweetThe Week 1 affair is the first of a league-record nine international games this season. NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has set his sights on 16 international contests per year, which is likely to coincide with a new CBA that could include an 18th regular-season game to accommodate those hopes.But before the league gets to 16, it has to get to 10. This spring, NFL team owners voted to have as many as 10 international games beginning in 2027. As recently as 2024, there were just five in a season.Australia is an important continent to the NFL. There is no language barrier. Explaining the game isn’t overly difficult, considering the country’s background with Australian rules football. It has the money and infrastructure to host NFL games. And it has produced the greatest international player success story to date in Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro offensive tackle Jordan Mailata.Flag football has been a priority for the league. For the first time, it will be an Olympic sport in 2028, but there’s no guarantee it sticks beyond the Los Angeles Games. With the 2032 Summer Games in Australia, a strong showing by the NFL Thursday night (Friday morning local time) could help flag football’s Olympic future.You could argue the NFL has proof of concept in Europe. The league has been in London for decades, and countries like Ireland, Spain, France and Germany have hosted or will host games this season. If and when the league awards games to countries like Italy, Austria or Greece, it’s possible the NFL will have a baseline understanding of how those could go.Australia is a different ball of wax. With its time difference — this is the first NFL regular-season game to be played on a different day local time than in the United States — and long travel, the league needs this game to succeed for the enterprise to be considered worthwhile.Should the Rams win, the rest of the league might try to copy off their paper. But, at least for now, it’s not something the league is losing sleep over.“Obviously that’s the club’s choice on when and how they go into the market. I don’t see that as a concern,” said Peter O’Reilly, NFL executive vice president of club business, international and league events. “The fact that a team may be in fewer days in advance of the game, I don’t think does anything to subdue necessarily the energy, the hype, the buzz in a market.“This offseason, countless numbers of NFL players were in countries around the world doing clinics, connecting with fans around the world. That’s where there’s so much time to create that level of deep engagement with fans around the world. Obviously, it will be interesting to see how this plays out, but I don’t see that as indicative of anything larger or problematic.”A league source, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, affirmed on background what O’Reilly said publicly last week. “It’s not something that’s on our radar,” the source said.A high-ranking source at another NFL team, someone with a strong understanding of the league’s international efforts, agreed.“LA has invested a ton in fan engagement with local artists, media and using alumni and cheer during the week,” the team source said. “I think that’s enough.Last year, the Rams did something no team ever had. In Week 6, they beat the Ravens 17-3 in Baltimore, with a Week 7 game in London against the Jacksonville Jaguars ahead. Rather than fly back to LA to get a few days of work in, the Rams remained in Baltimore for the entire week of practice.They flew to London on Friday night and got to town about 30 hours before kickoff to face the Jaguars, who had been there since Monday. The Rams rolled 35-7 against a Jaguars team that would finish the season 13-4. And they weren’t just fresh against Jacksonville — they were arguably at their very best.The circumstances here aren’t the same, though. Because the Rams spent that week in Baltimore before heading to London, they cut the body-clock change to five hours, compared to 17 with this Melbourne trip. The flight from Baltimore to London was about seven hours, compared to the 15-hour trek the Rams just took to Melbourne, plus a 15-hour trek back.But that game, along with other successful international journeys, set the template for how the Rams would approach this year’s trip. Soon after they landed the Melbourne assignment in the spring, the franchise was already planning on a last-minute arrival.They ultimately decided to fly Tuesday night, putting them in Melbourne less than 30 hours before the game. The Rams rented a double-decker Qantas jet with beds for all 53 players. They were advised to stay up two hours later than normal that night. That way, they could keep the body clock the same after an afternoon practice in Melbourne and get a full night of sleep ahead of a 10:30 a.m. kickoff.“What I think is the most important thing is we make decisions that we feel like are in the players’ best interest, and that’ll guide every approach,” McVay said. “What you have to do is be able to separate the actual result from what is actually sound in terms of your process. I’m comfortable with that. That’s the world that we live in.”The Rams enjoyed a blowout victory over the Jaguars last season after arriving in London about 30 hours before game time. (Dan Istitene / Getty Images)Since coach Kyle Shanahan and general manager John Lynch arrived in 2017, the 49ers have tried to cut back on travel by staying in the Eastern time zone between back-to-back games there and by striving to acclimate to far-flung or unusual venues.For example, they trained in Colorado Springs ahead of a 2022 game in Mexico City to adjust to playing at altitude. They crushed the Arizona Cardinals, who didn’t practice at altitude, 38-10, only reinforcing their methodical approach. The 49ers will go back to Colorado Springs before a Week 11 game against the Minnesota Vikings in Mexico City this year.They’ve had similar success on the second leg of back-to-back East Coast games, going 4-1 after training at places such as Youngstown State in Ohio, IMG Academy in Florida and The Greenbrier Resort in West Virginia. Their only loss in that scenario came in Atlanta in 2022 following a win at Carolina and a stay at The Greenbrier.Offensive tackle Trent Williams said traveling early to Australia fits the team’s long-established approach.“We look at it from an old-school standpoint,” he said. “We want to get there and get acclimated beforehand. And the game is so early. We don’t play another game this early. I’ve never played this early my whole career.”After learning about the Melbourne game, Lynch consulted several experts on long-distance travel. One was Darren Cahill, coach of top-ranked men’s tennis star Jannik Sinner, who plays in tournaments worldwide. That includes the Australian Open, which is held next door to the Melbourne Cricket Ground.Lynch also spoke with Trent Robinson, who coaches the Sydney Roosters, a rugby team in Australia that has played in Las Vegas and made several 10,500-mile trips to play teams in England. Under Robinson, the Roosters have thrived on long-distance hauls to places like Leeds, Manchester and London, even when facing home teams. They claimed back-to-back World Club Challenge titles over British opponents in 2019 and 2020.Robinson’s message to Lynch: “Recover, recover, connection, connection over the first couple of days.”That is, there’s value in physically acclimating to a new environment and also in connecting with your teammates and coaches.“When you spend time with teammates in a different country, you build memories,” Robinson said. “I talked to John about this: Our sport is about performance, but it offers us life memories at the same time. At the end of the week, you want to win the game. But enjoyment along the way is key as well.”Robinson also said he tries to have his players connect to the city — “every city has its own energy” — in which they’re playing. That might mean team meals in town, visits to memorials and zoos and just mingling with locals — anything to pick up on a city’s vibe.Though the 49ers split time mostly between their team hotel and their nearby training center, some ventured farther afield — “I’ve been to three coffee shops so far,” defensive end Nick Bosa said — and had a chance to do more exploring on their day off before the game.George Kittle, 49ers have enjoyed Australia visitMatt BarrowsThe Rams had their own plan: They chartered a plane large enough to fit 53 beds for players on the active roster to sleep on. They coordinated a sleep schedule to adjust their body clocks slightly toward Australia time — but only slightly.This approach has created more of an assignment for players than a trip they’ll remember beyond the game, but perhaps that’s the cost of a season in which winning is as paramount as it is for these Rams.The Rams have claimed Australia as one of their international marketing territories, and they’ve seen the first game in Australia as a trajectory rather than a single moment.Whereas the 49ers packed their events into a week-long ramp-up to the game itself, the Rams felt better about showing up last-minute because of the year-plus the franchise has spent running events to build a fan base around Melbourne.That included summer trips to the country with players such as running back Kyren Williams, guards Kevin Dotson and Steve Avila, and defensive lineman Kobie Turner to create outreach and models for their players to follow on how to handle the body clock and flight challenges.Not every international game sees teams traipsing around the city. Last year, Aaron Rodgers bemoaned the Pittsburgh Steelers not getting to Ireland earlier to experience the countryside and have a Guinness from the tap. But even when teams arrive early for international games, they don’t always explore. Games in Brazil and Mexico City have traditionally come with warnings to clubs about venturing off hotel grounds.If anyone in the league is miffed, few have as much capital to burn as the Rams’ organization and owner Stan Kroenke. The palatial SoFi Stadium was built without a single dollar of outside funds to house the Rams and their bunkmates, the Chargers. It hosted one Super Bowl — which the Rams won following the 2021 season — with a second coming in five months, saw eight World Cup matches and helped Los Angeles and the U.S. secure the 2028 Olympics, the first Summer Games in the country in more than three decades.Not only did the Rams raise their hands for this trip, but last year the team held its version of minicamp in Hawaii, a state that had not seen the NFL in person since the 2016 Pro Bowl. The Rams have global marketing rights in seven countries, tying with the Kansas City Chiefs for the most in the NFL. Along with Australia, the Rams have rights in China, Japan, South Korea, Mexico, New Zealand and the United Arab Emirates.The NFL’s Global Markets Program isn’t well understood, even though it’s entering its fifth year. As the program has grown, so, too, have teams’ financial investments in those markets. This has always been a long play for the league as it eyes global dominance.Fandom is often learned in childhood, and those children grow to be adults with money to spend. The NFL can figure out the conversion rates 20 years from now.“The Niners get one week to activate in the market,” said one Rams team source. “We’ve been there since 2022.”No one knows the best way to take on an NFL game 7,855 miles away, and there might not be a consensus after Thursday night, either.“Our expectation is our guys will be ready to go, and I’m not worried about it because I know what our plans are,” McVay said. “We’re going to follow that plan, and then we’re going to focus on our preparation and try to go be at our best and go swing when we get a chance to play against a great team.”