EmailPrintOpen Extended ReactionsMELBOURNE, Australia -- Since the San Francisco 49ers returned to the Super Bowl at the end of the 2019 season, linebacker Fred Warner has grown accustomed to seeing a familiar sight any time his team plays a road game: 49ers fans.A lot of them.Whether it's a bit south in Los Angeles, further south in Mexico City or somewhere out east like New York City, Warner finds comfort in looking up to the stands to see a large swath of red and gold.But never has the Niners' fanbase faced a travel test -- almost 8,000 miles and a 16-hour flight across the international dateline from San Francisco to Melbourne, Australia -- like the one it will get on Thursday night when the team opens the season against the Los Angeles Rams."The hope is that it's a sea of red," Warner said. "That's what the hope always is. The faithful, in my opinion, are the best fans in the world. We always travel no matter the situation, where we're going, whether it's in the states, out of the states. They've always shown love."In most international settings, it's common to see fan representation from all 32 teams. Left tackle Trent Williams said that one of his main memories from a trip to London when he played for Washington was the diversity of jerseys in the seats.But there have been plenty of indicators this week that the Niners will feel right at home at Melbourne Cricket Ground, even if it's not quite to the level of some of their other domestic crowd takeovers.According to Charlotte Offord, the NFL's general manager of Australia and New Zealand, the 49ers are the most popular team in Australia based on total number of fans. While the NFL hasn't always been this popular in Australia, Offord believes the love for the Niners stems from the game's growing popularity at the time the dynastic Niners of the 1980s and '90s were winning championships."I think that comes from history, the Montana days, the Jerry Rice days," Offord said. "There's a lot of fans here that have been watching NFL since the '80s. And the 49ers have this kind of nostalgia around them ... They are the No. 1 team in the market."How might that manifest at the MCG on Friday morning in Melbourne? It's hard to say, but there are some ways to come up with an educated guess. According to Offord, the league ran a register for interest in the game after it was announced. For that, 175,000 people signed up for a game taking place in a 100,000-seat stadium.When the majority of those tickets went on sale, Offord said they sold out in about two hours. Other smaller sales since then have sold out in about 24 hours, leaving Offord to believe it will be a "full house."The league says 48% of ticket buyers came from overseas or another state in Australia, with the rest coming from Victoria. Out of that, Offord said 10-12% are coming from the United States.While there's no specific data tracking how many of those fans are coming from the Bay Area or identify as 49ers fans, there are some indicators that the turnout will be strong beyond the team's popularity in Australia, where Niners jerseys were the third-most sold (behind the Seahawks and Patriots) last year, with running back Christian McCaffrey's No. 23 leading in sales among all players.A United Airlines spokesperson said the San Francisco hub was seeing a "strong demand" for its Melbourne flights this week*,* with bookings up 65% from a year ago at this time for the SFO to MEL route."I'm hoping for a home game from a perspective of more red than whatever color the Rams fans wear," 49ers CEO Al Guido said. "There's a really good amount of people that have bought in the Bay Area and broader California, so that makes me feel good. There's also a level of significant Australia fans that have bought and knowing that we're already the No. 1 team as it relates to fandom in Australia gives me good comfort."While Australia is not one of the three countries in which the 49ers have global marketing rights, the Niners have embraced their time in the country this week. They've visited schools and community centers and players have taken time to tour the city. Guido said the Niners are "thrilled" with the reaction they've gotten from NFL fans in Melbourne.That doesn't mean they will look to add Australia to the United Kingdom, United Arab Emirates and Mexico as their international markets, but it's also not out of the question."Over a period of time, you actually have to have really boots on the ground in these markets," Guido said. "The league wants to see you commit versus just sort of land grabbing different countries because it makes sense to you. And given what we were doing in those other markets, we wanted to be fair to any other market that if we were going to go in, that we were going to go in with our full resources and really grow a fan base."Many of those 49ers fans have been waiting for the chance to see their favorite team on Australian soil for many years.Huw Davies, 48, became a 49ers fan in 1989 when his father took a business trip from their home in Tasmania to the United States and came back with a handful of NFL hats for his children. Davies got a Niners hat and immediately attached himself to the team.When Davies turned 18, he and his brother went to their first game at Candlestick Park, a 28-21 win against the Cincinnati Bengals. Davies has been to plenty of games since then, but he wasn't sure he'd ever get to see his favorite team so close to home.Upon finding out that the Niners were coming to play the Rams, jumping and screaming took place in the Davies' kitchen. They signed up for tickets and though they were probably No. 72,000 in the queue, they managed to get seats.Harry Murtough, 30, says his fandom isn't as deep-rooted as Davies', but he first latched on to the Niners around 2011 when the team finally improved from a decade or so of struggles under Jim Harbaugh. He fell in love with the game's strategy and kept building his fandom.Murtough went to his first game -- a Niners-Lions tilt -- in 2012 and tries to go to a game every year but said he hasn't been since 2019. He, too, was unsure if he'd ever get the chance to see his favorite team and burst with joy when the league announced the Niners as the Rams' opponent. Taking advantage of a credit card presale, Murtough bought a couple of tickets as well.Davies and Murtough are just two of the 49ers fans in Australia, but they insist on doing all they can to help grow the team's fanbase here. It's why Davies brought his son, Flynn, 7, with him to the MCG."It's the best," Davies said. "He sits next to me on Monday mornings when school's out and we watch the games. I love it because it's a special thing to me and it's something that we can do together. He's learning it and he's getting involved in it."Murtough purchased an extra ticket, too, for his father, Richard, 75."The fact that I'm able to take my dad to it, really, it just means so much," Murtough said. "He's not a 49ers fan, but he will be."
