The Five Most Important Franchise Relocations of All Time

Author’s note: I have lived in Arizona my entire life.

The Cardinals’ inclusion on this list is intriguing for many reasons. First and foremost is that, up until the team moved from Sun Devil Stadium to University of Phoenix Stadium to begin the 2006 season, they annually ranked at or near the bottom of the league in attendance. They’ve had only two winning seasons since moving to the desert. And while I have no facts to back the following claim up, I’m pretty sure they ranked at or near the bottom of the league in merchandise sales, marketability and relevance.

But the relocation of the team to Arizona was important because it required a lot of foresight on the part of the league and team owner Bill Bidwell to recognize the potential for growth the Phoenix-area had, not only in the world of sports, but as a city in the United States.

At the time of the move, the population of the entire state of Arizona was roughly 3.5 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2008, the population of the state had increased to roughly 6.5 million, with nearly 4 million people living in Maricopa County, the county in which the city of Phoenix is in. Phoenix itself is among the top seven most populated cities in the United States, and the rate at which it has grown over the last two decades is astounding.

I am not suggesting that Phoenix grew so large because the Cardinals moved here. There are multiple unrelated factors that played a role in the growth.
However, there is no denying that cities that have multiple sports teams are viewed as “big” cities which tend to have a lot to offer.

In addition to factors completely unrelated to sports, the impact the move had on Phoenix as a sports market can not be overstated. Prior to the Cardinals’ arrival, Phoenix had only one professional sports team, the NBA’s Phoenix Suns.

Within ten years of the team’s arrival, the city added both a professional hockey and a professional baseball team, making it one of only a handful of cities in the country to have teams in all four major American sports leagues.

Professional sports in the first half of the 20th century was almost exclusively the property of the Eastern states. There are plenty of logical reasons for this, such as the lack of efficient transportation from cities on one coast to the other and the heavy tilt of population towards the east coast at that time.

By 1946, however, this notion was becoming extremely outdated. Los Angeles not only had a population of over one million people, but it had hosted the Summer Olympics in 1932.

The Rams became the first major league (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL) team to head west.

Their impact was instantaneous. They immediately signed halfback Kenny Washington and wide receiver Woody Strode, both of whom were African-Americans. The duo became the first African-Americans to play in the NFL since the league had imposed a ban on African-Americans in 1932.

Though the Rams eventually relocated to St. Louis in 1995, the original relocation still ranks among the most important relocations in the history of sports; because it showed people everywhere, particularly the commissioners and owners in professional sports, that West Coast cities were viable locations for successful teams.

Though it’s hard to imagine these days, the Lakers have not always been in Los Angeles. They were founded in 1946 as the Detroit Gems. In 1947, they moved to Minneapolis and took the name “Lakers” because of the state’s nickname as the “land of 10,000 lakes.”

Despite multiple championships in Minneapolis, attendance gradually declined. Ownership decided to relocate to Los Angeles after also considering Chicago and San Francisco.

Not only did the Lakers become the NBA’s first West Coast team, they have also become the most successful relocated franchise in the history of sports.
From Jerry West, Elgin Baylor and Wilt Chamberlin to Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and the rest of the “Showtime” teams of the 1980s and on to modern-day stars like Shaquille O’Neal and Kobe Bryant, the team has always had the star power befitting of Hollywood’s premier sports team.

The Lakers have also had unmatched team success. The recently crowned 2009 NBA champions have won 10 championships since moving west, and their 15 total championships is second-best in the NBA, trailing only the Boston Celtics, who have 17.

In addition, Lakers games have grown into “must see” events for everybody in the city, be they citizens or celebrities like Jack Nicholson, whose courtside presence at home games has become as much of a trademark of the team as their yellow home uniforms.

Though the franchise has since returned to Oakland, the Raiders move to Los Angeles in 1982 had the most wide-ranging impact on franchise relocations in professional sports.

Raiders owner Al Davis had sought to move his team to Los Angeles as early as 1980 because he felt the team’s stadium was antiquated and it lacked money-making amenities of modern sports stadiums such as luxury suites.

NFL by-laws required that such moves be approved by three-fourths of the leagues owners, who voted down the move 22-0, with five owners abstaining from the vote. When Davis tried to move the team anyways, he was stopped by an injunction.

He responded by filing an antitrust lawsuit against the league, claiming it had conspired to restrain trade, a violation of federal antitrust law. Davis won the suit, and the Raiders moved to Los Angeles prior to the 1982 season.

Encouraged by the verdict and the precedent it set forth, disgruntled owners of teams in all sports began moving their teams to new cities. In the NBA, the Kansas City Kings moved to Sacramento and the San Diego Clippers moved to Los Angeles. In the NFL, the Baltimore Colts left town, literally in the middle of the night, and moved to Indianapolis.

For a time, leagues were virtually powerless in preventing teams from moving.

Thanks to the Raiders’ move to Los Angeles, team owners now have much more power, particularly when it comes to renovating old stadiums or getting new ones built.

And though the price of this power has negatively impacted many fans (ironically, Art Modell, owner of the old Cleveland Browns, opposed the original Raider move yet, years later, after the benefits of the power it gave individual team owners became clear, he had no problem using the power to rip the team and heart out of the city of Cleveland and move it to Baltimore over a stadium dispute), I firmly believe that any story about franchise relocation, even one that’s supposed to have an overall positive vibe, would be incomplete without mention of the relocation story of the Raiders.

These two bitter rivals are forever linked together.

Though the Rams were the first team from a major league to move west, it was at a time when football was a niche sport in America. In the 1950’s, baseball was at the apex of its popularity, so when these two storied franchises moved west, it was viewed nationally as a sign that the west coast was ready for major sports.

It is no coincidence that within two years of the Dodgers coming to Los Angeles, the Lakers followed suit, or that the Philadelphia Warriors moved to San Francisco in 1962.

The dawning of the modern era of professional sports began as a result of the Dodgers and Giants moving west. In the 20 years that followed, teams in all leagues, be they expansion or relocated, began appearing in western cities from Seattle and San Diego to Portland and Phoenix.

The other factor that makes the relocations of the Dodgers and Giants so interesting and important is that it is the first and only rivalry to relocate from one coast to the other.
Each franchise built a storied history, not only with each other, but within the city of New York. The teams were bitter rivals and, by the time they left New York, each had won championships, each could boast of a wide array of legendary players and each had built a substantial fan base.

The Dodgers, in particular, broke the hearts of the people of Brooklyn when they left. The team ultimately decided to leave after failing to convince the government to build them a new stadium.

The Giants, meanwhile, had been considering relocation, but weren’t really considering California until they were approached by Dodgers ownership, who knew they needed another team to move to California to ultimately make the move viable and give it a chance for long-term success.

More than 50 years later, each team has built a storied history in their new homes, and each has built large fan bases.

The moves were not only successful, they were the most important franchise relocations in American sports history.