History of the National Football League in Los Angeles
Professional American football, especially its established top level, the National Football League (NFL), has had a long and complicated history in Los Angeles, which is the center of the second-largest media market in the United States. Los Angeles was the first city on the West Coast of the United States to host an NFL team of its own, when the former Cleveland Rams relocated to Los Angeles in 1946 and played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum (“The Coliseum”) from 1946 until 1979. The Rams, after moving to suburban Anaheim, California in 1980, were joined in the Los Angeles metropolitan area by the Los Angeles Raiders when that team moved into the Coliseum in 1982. A combination of a split fan base and earthquake damage to the Coliseum prompted both teams to leave Los Angeles simultaneously prior to the 1995 season. The Raiders returned to their original home of Oakland,