History Of The National Football League In Los Angeles
Professional American football, especially its established top level, the National Football League, has had a long history in Los Angeles, which is the center of the second-largest media market in the United States. Since 1995, Los Angeles has been by far the largest U.S. market without an NFL team. It is currently more than double the size of any other North American market to get serious consideration for a team. The NFL and other professional leagues have had multiple teams in Los Angeles between 1946 and 1994, all of which originally played home games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The nearest team for the area is the San Diego Chargers.
In 1946, the Los Angeles Dons of the All-America Football Conference started play, lasting four years before folding with the demise of the AAFC. Also in 1946, the Cleveland Rams became the first National Football League (NFL) franchise to locate in Los Angeles. The Rams moved to Anaheim Stadium in 1980, and left southern California altogether in 1995 for St. Louis. The AFL founded the Los Angeles Chargers in 1960, who subsequently moved to San Diego the following year. The Oakland Raiders moved to Los Angeles in 1982, only to return to Oakland after the 1994 season. There were problems with filling all of the 90,000-plus seats in the Coliseum to avoid a television blackout in the Los Angeles area.
The lack of an NFL team in Los Angeles is an issue the league and the city have been working on to resolve since the Raiders left. One key sticking point had been whether the Coliseum should be the primary venue for a new team, or whether a lower capacity NFL-specific stadium should be built in the area. In November 2007, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa declared that the policy of requiring the NFL to relocate to the Coliseum will change and other options will be explored.
There have been other professional football teams in the city, including PCPFL teams during World War II, XFL, AFL, USFL, and WFL.
On September 28, 2012, the LA City Council approved a proposal to build Farmers Field in a 12-0 vote. The new stadium will enable an NFL team to move to Los Angeles. The stadium will be located in Downtown Los Angeles as part of the LA Live complex and is expected to be completed by 2016.
Read more about History Of The National Football League In Los Angeles: The Early Years, NFL Franchises in Los Angeles 1946–1994, Since 1995: Major Developments, In Fiction
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