page_title: History of the National Football League in Los Angeles
section_title: Anaheim Stadium
hierarchical_section_title: History of the National Football League in Los Angeles / Football stadiums in the Los Angeles area / Anaheim Stadium
caption_attribution_description: English: The Los Angeles Rams playing host to the Atlanta Falcons during a December 8, 1991 home game at Anaheim Stadium. This photograph was taken using an unspecified 35mm camera and scanned using a Canon CanoScan LiDE 60 scanner
context_page_description: Professional American football, especially its established top level, the National Football League, 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 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, California, while the Rams began a 21-year tenure in St. Louis, Missouri and a twenty year span began where Los Angeles was the largest media market in the counrty without a NFL team.
context_section_description: Anaheim Stadium, known since 2004 as Angel Stadium of Anaheim, is approximately 25 miles (40 km) south east of Downtown Los Angeles, at the city of Anaheim. It was built by Major League Baseball's California Angels – currently Los Angeles Angels – and opened in 1966. The Rams moved into the stadium in 1980, looking for a more modern venue than the Coliseum, and also a stadium that would be small enough to keep Rams games from being blacked out on local television. About 23,000 seats were added for football games. Three teams had previously played home games in Anaheim Stadium prior to the Rams' move: the Southern California Sun of the World Football League and the now-defunct football programs at Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State.
  After the Rams left California in 1995, Angel Stadium was reverted to a baseball-only configuration, and only hosts high school football. The stadium can no longer supply the needs of national TV football broadcasts.
caption: Rams game at Anaheim Stadium, 1991.
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