‘It was like Buckingham Palace’: Inside the exclusive state dinner to welcome NFL powerbrokers

Dinners at which a throne is dusted off and powerbrokers and politicians break bread in a setting reminiscent of a scene from Harry Potter are few and far between in Melbourne.

So CBD took great notice when informed of what was a rare state dinner at Government House to welcome the NFL to Melbourne.

Spring Street and Governor Margaret Gardner were strangely reluctant to provide exacting details about the occasion, which CBD hears was quite the treat for 200-odd guests who made the hush-hush cut on Wednesday night, but titbits are coming our way.

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell was the big name in the room, and shared his thoughts on the NFL’s expansion into Australia in an interview with Eddie McGuire.

The governor and Premier Ben Carroll addressed guests at the start of the evening. The governor sat on a throne – officially known as the State Chair of Victoria and perched on the vice-regal dais at the top of the ballroom – during the ceremonial proceedings.

Guests were seated across three long tables in the grand state ballroom. In a photo posted from the dinner, showing the tables and heritage touches, the room was vaguely reminiscent of Hogwarts’ Great Hall from the Harry Potter universe.

CBD has been told Tourism Minister Natalie Suleyman, Sports Minister Steve Dimopoulos and Major Events Minister Anthony Carbines were among the attendees.

Visit Victoria board chair Andy Penn and his wife, Kallie Blauhorn, were also present, along with Visit Vic’s Brendan McClements, SEN boss Craig Hutchison, LA Rams president Kevin Demoff, NFL players and team officials.

“It was like Buckingham Palace there last night [Wednesday],” CBD was told. “It was extraordinary.”

Guests enjoyed a menu curated by Andrew McConnell, Karen Martini and Dan Hunter as a showcase to Victorian food and wine, and after the meal were afforded a gander at the big house in all its glory, being invited to mingle in the state apartments, including the state drawing room, state hall and billiard room.

CBD understands it has been a decade since the state ballroom has been used for a dinner in this way. The last time was for the visit of Joe Biden in 2016 when he was US vice-president.

In 2020, the ballroom hosted a state luncheon for the visiting president of Israel.

We wish we could have been there on Wednesday– it sounds like a blast – but, alas, the media was not invited.

Private equity boss eyes Australia

Money man Gerry Cardinale is expected to be among the 100,000 fans at the MCG for the Rams versus 49ers game on Friday. CBD heard the global private equity boss had slipped into Melbourne from Italy on Thursday.

US-based Cardinale is the founder and chief executive of RedBird Capital Partners, and via the fund has stakes in among other things AC Milan, Banijay Entertainment and Fenway Sports Group, which owns the Boston Red Sox.

He has a piece of the Channel 10 pie thanks to the merger between Skydance and Paramount – owner of 10 in Australia – which Redbird put $2 billion into. He was also named in Time magazine’s 2026 100 Most Influential People in Sports list.

While Cardinale may be a late arrival in town, he had a presence in Melbourne earlier this week, beaming into the SportNXT conference from Turin, where he revealed he had a business lens on Australia. He visited Melbourne in early 2026.

“I was there several months ago. It really blew my mind what you guys have going on in Australia and Melbourne particularly,” Cardinale told SportNXT.

Cardinale will be a guest of NFL boss Roger Goodell for the match.

“I’m going to sit with [Goodell] to watch it and get his perspectives as well,” Cardinale said.

“When I came back from our trip [in early 2026] … and having seen the MCG, I went to see him, and he agrees with me. We think there’s a huge opportunity in Australia and both on infrastructure [and] the globalisation of the kind of sports that you guys love.”

Watch this space.

Checking out the competition at the MCG

All roads will lead to the MCG on Friday morning. A mix of the famous, wealthy and well connected are expected to be in the stands for the NFL’s first regular season game in Australia.

Sports administrator Peter V’landys, Tabcorp boss Gillon McLachlan, federal Sports Minister Anika Wells, singer Harry Connick Jnr, surfer Mick Fanning, Collingwood players Nick and Josh Daicos , and their dad and former player Peter Daicos, winter Olympian Scotty James, cricketer Mitchell Starc, influencer Bec Judd and singer/presenter Dannii Minogue have RSVP-ed to be at the morning match. It is the culmination of a week in which the NFL has brought its Hollywood style of sport-tainment to Melbourne.

Interestingly, CBD hears certain people in other states are curious to see the NFL takeover in action. There is word that three people from WA tourism and four from the NSW tourism operation are heading to the game.

Could they be checking out what they missed out on, or are they just sports fans?

NSW Premier Chris Minns, of course, said in February that his state hadn’t tried to land the NFL game because the asking price was “a king’s ransom”.

Whether it was worth Victoria’s gamble will be clearer after Friday.

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Fiona Byrne is the CBD columnist for The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect via email.AdvertisementAdvertisement