Why oddsmakers aren’t buying into Rams-49ers Australia travel debate

The Rams and 49ers are taking drastically different approaches to one of the NFL’s most unusual road trips.

Oddsmakers don’t think either one has an advantage.

San Francisco will have been Down Under for nearly a week when the NFC West rivals kick off their season opener in Melbourne, while Los Angeles will essentially be getting off the plane and suiting up after one night of sleep.

Despite the stark difference in preparation, which is one of the biggest storylines of Week 1 of the 2026 season, sportsbooks have made no meaningful adjustment to the betting line.

“We have assigned zero value to this,” Tyler Gour, a football trader at Fanatics Sportsbook, told The Post.

DraftKings Director of Sports Operations Johnny Avello said the differing travel plans haven’t moved his book’s number, with the Rams holding as 3.5-point favorites since early summer — well before the teams’ approaches became a talking point.

BetMGM Sportsbook is on the same page.

“The travel plans by each team have no impact on the game from a trading perspective,” BetMGM’s Christian Cipollini said.

Both teams have said they’re relying on science and experts to ensure they arrive as prepared as possible for the crucial division matchup.

They’ve just reached opposite conclusions.

The 49ers have been in Australia since Friday, giving their bodies time to adjust after a nearly 16-hour flight and a 17-hour time difference from California.

“I think the final straw was we sent an advanced group, and they all said for three days you feel out of whack,” San Francisco general manager John Lynch said last week. “So it became clear to us in our mind that the best logistics for this trip was to put our players in the best position for success.”

The Rams’ strategy, meanwhile, is to attempt to avoid disrupting their body clocks for as long as possible and beat the worst of the jet lag altogether.

They were expected to land in Melbourne after their “boujee” flight roughly 24 hours before kickoff, giving the team just one night of sleep before taking the field.

“We’re staying in our rhythm and routine,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said. “There’s different approaches and theories, but I do have a lot of trust in our group and we’ll see.”

With little precedent to suggest one approach is better than the other, oddsmakers are essentially trusting that neither team has gotten it completely wrong.

“We’re in the age where both organizations have teams dedicated to managing sleep,” Gour said. “Because of that, we’re inclined to trust the experts here and believe that there is no major competitive disadvantage to staying in your own beds and practicing at your own facility over the 49ers’ week-long acclimation.”

The betting market hasn’t offered much reason to think otherwise.

“This is such a new experience for all involved, including the sportsbooks,” Gour continued. “In situations like this, the market has the opportunity to speak for itself and move the point spread one way or the other, but that simply hasn’t happened.”

The effects of the trip may not even become clear until after the teams return home for the rest of the 18-week season.

Joey Feazel, head of football at Caesars Sportsbook, said he thinks “the bigger impact will be in Week 2, when we might see how both teams reacclimate for their second games.”

Although the NFL has been playing regular-season games in Europe and beyond since 2007, this is the league’s first trip to Australia, which is the longest journey an NFL team has made for a regular season game, leaving oddsmakers with no real precedent for how it might affect two teams taking opposite approaches.

“This is the first time something like this has happened,” Cipollini said. “If one team picks a better strategy, we won’t know until after the game. We could adjust in the future based on the results, but we need more information.”