Wondering how best to plan your next business trip? A bunch of football players might have the answer.
The San Francisco 49ers will take on the Los Angeles Rams on Thursday in a clash of division rivals AND warring ideologies over the best way to travel for work.
The game starts at 8:35 PM ET on Netflix in Melbourne, Australia, because the NFL doesn’t stop until it has more money than God increasing his global football fandom. International competitions are not new to the competition, but the 17-hour time difference between Melbourne and California presents a huge travel challenge.
And the playing teams take terribly different approaches to their approximately 16-hour flights.
The 49ers arrived in Melbourne almost a week ago, opting to arrive early to acclimatize to the time change. The Rams, meanwhile, left LA on Tuesday night, arriving about 24 hours before kickoff. Ultimately, they will spend about the same amount of time traveling to and from Melbourne as they do staying there.
It’s a strategy both teams have used before.
Four times in recent years, the 49ers have avoided traveling home when playing back-to-back games far from San Francisco. Last year, the Rams didn’t reach London until about 30 hours before kickoff, opting to set up camp in Baltimore, where they had played the week before.
Both approaches were successful: the 49ers went 7-1 on those four road trips, and the Rams won their games in Baltimore and London.
But Australia is a completely different animal.
No good answers when you’re traveling for work
The different approaches of the Rams and 49ers highlight the wide range of opinions people have about the best way to travel.
This year at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, I asked executives for tips for long-haul flights. There was no consensus.
“Just sleep when you can,” David Steinbach, Global Chief Investment Officer at Hines, told me in January. “It’s a deficit, and you’re just trying to build it back up no matter what.”
‘I’m not trying to get ahead at any point. I just let the body guide me,” he added.
In the meantime…
“My biggest thing is getting on the plane and going straight into the time zone I’m going to,” said Lisa Stevens, Aon’s Chief Administrative Officer. “I don’t sleep too much.”
(For what it’s worth, I try to sleep right away on red-eye flights. But I’ll be damned if I don’t accept a free meal when they start handing it out.)
One thing, the two NFL teams did agree on: how to get there. The Rams and 49ers both took the Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane. In a video from the plane, Rams player Byron Young called the lineup “bouje.“
On the field… or in the meeting room
You could say that the success or failure of either team doesn’t correlate with the work most of us do. I die a little inside when executives compare themselves to professional athletes LinkedIn postsbut the physical and mental aspects of work travel weigh on us all.
You may not have to run a 40-yard dash, but you’ll get your steps in at a distributed conference. And you’re wrong if you don’t think the NFL is a thinking people’s game. Can you identify split-field zone coverage disguised with a few fake blitzes? Didn’t think so.
However, don’t be too quick to book your business trip based on tonight’s results. Jet lag can have a long tail, something the 49ers have seen firsthand. San Francisco went 1-3 in the next game after the four extended road trips I mentioned earlier.
Bill Simmons, a sports media personality who has spoken extensively on this subject, said he could see the 49ers winning tonight, but trouble in the coming weeks as they adapt after their long acclimatization to Australia.
As for the oddsmakers, they give the edge to the Rams, who are 3.5-point favorites. This means that the Rams must win by at least 4 points for your bet to stand. (I wouldn’t take that action, but I’m also in no position to give anyone gambling advice.)
It’s hard to put too much stock in the odds as the Rams are seen as the favorites to win the Super Bowl.
But as If they make it this far, they don’t have to worry about travel logistics.
This season’s Super Bowl will be held at SoFi Stadium, home of the Los Angeles Rams.
