Angel Stadium has served as the home of the Los Angeles Angels since its opening in 1966
The Dodgers were founded in Brooklyn, New York in 1883; they officially adopted the name Dodgers in 1932. The team moved to Los Angeles before the 1958 season and played four consecutive seasons at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum before they moved to their current home stadium, Dodger Stadium, in 1962. The Dodgers are one of the most valuable franchises in MLB. They have won seven World Series championships and 24 National League pennants.[7] Eleven NL MVP award winners have played for the Dodgers, winning a total of thirteen MVP Awards; eight Cy Young Award winners have also pitched for the Dodgers, winning a total of twelve Cy Young Awards. The team has even had eighteen Rookie of the Year Award winners, twice as many as the next closest team, including four consecutive from 1979 to 1982 and five consecutive from 1992 to 1996.[8] Los Angeles and the Dodgers hosted the MLB All-Star Game in the summer of 2022.[4]
Crypto.com Arena is the current home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Los Angeles Sparks. The arena hosted the Los Angeles Clippers until 2024.
Los Angeles boasts two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams, the Los Angeles Lakers and the Los Angeles Clippers. Both shared the Crypto.com Arena (formerly the Staples Center) from 1999 to 2024. The Lakers are one of the most valuable franchises in the NBA and have gained a considerable fanbase over the years. They have the most championships of all current Los Angeles franchises, having gained 12 titles in LA and 17 overall, the joint most in the NBA along with the Boston Celtics. The Lakers were founded as the Minneapolis Lakers, having moved to Southern California in 1960.[10]
The LA Clippers were founded as the Buffalo Braves in 1970; in 1978, the team moved to San Diego and changed the nickname to Clippers; the team re-located from San Diego in 1984. They were one of three expansion teams to join the NBA that year, along with the Cleveland Cavaliers and Portland Trail Blazers. The Braves saw some success and reached the playoffs three times, led by league Most Valuable Player (MVP) Bob McAdoo. Conflicts with the Canisius Golden Griffins over the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium and the sale of the franchise led to them relocating from Buffalo to San Diego.
When he died in 2013, Lakers owner Jerry Buss also owned the city's WNBA franchise, the Los Angeles Sparks, which also plays at Crypto.com Arena. His family still owns the Lakers, but has since sold the Sparks to Guggenheim Partners, the current owners of the Dodgers. One year later, longtime Clippers owner Donald Sterling was banned from the NBA after derogatory statements he made became public, and was subsequently forced to sell the team. The franchise was purchased by former Microsoft executive Steve Ballmer in August 2014. The Clippers built a new arena, the Intuit Dome, in Inglewood, across from SoFi Stadium in 2024 when their lease with Crypto.com Arena expired.[11][12]
Los Angeles did not have an NFL team in between the 1994 season and the 2016 season. Immediately after the 1994 season, the Los Angeles Rams moved from suburban Anaheim, California, to St. Louis, Missouri, and the Los Angeles Raiders returned to Oakland, California, after playing 13 years in the L.A. Memorial Coliseum (1982–1994) and winning Super Bowl XVIII. Between 1995 and 2016, there were multiple failed stadium proposals to bring back the NFL to Los Angeles and teams threatening to move in. On January 12, 2016, NFL owners voted 30–2 to allow the then St. Louis Rams to move back to Los Angeles and allow for the construction of the stadium proposed by Rams owner Stan Kroenke over a plan proposed by the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers. The Chargers would still follow through with a move to Los Angeles a year later in 2017.[13][14] The Rams and Chargers play their home games at the 70,240-seat SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. 2017 marked the first time since 1960 that the Rams and Chargers shared the same market and the first time since 1994 that the market had two NFL teams. The Los Angeles Rams won Super Bowl LVI at SoFi Stadium in 2022 making them only the second NFL team to win the Super Bowl on home turf after the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in 2020.
Prior to the NFL, Los Angeles had multiple teams in the American Football League. The Los Angeles Wildcats, also called "Wilson Wildcats", were a traveling team for the first AFL in 1926. The Los Angeles Bulldogs were members of AFL II (1937) and a minor AFL (1939) before joining the Pacific Coast Professional Football League. The original Los Angeles Chargers were a charter member of AFL IV, becoming the San Diego Chargers in 1961. The Los Angeles Mustangs were members of the short-lived American Football League in 1944. From 1983 to 1985, the Los Angeles Express was a team in the United States Football League.
The Kings were founded on June 5, 1967, after Jack Kent Cooke was awarded an NHL expansion franchise for Los Angeles on February 9, 1966, becoming one of the six teams that began play as part of the 1967 NHL expansion. Prior to the Kings arrival in the Los Angeles area, both the Pacific Coast Hockey League (PCHL) and the Western Hockey League (WHL) had several teams in California, including the PCHL's Los Angeles Monarchs of the 1930s and the WHL's Los Angeles Blades of the 1960s.[15] The Kings have won two Stanley Cup titles in 2012 and 2014.
The Ducks were founded in 1993 by The Walt Disney Company with an entrance fee of $50 million, half of which Disney paid to the Los Angeles Kings as compensation for sharing the Southern California NHL market.[16] On March 1, 1993, at the brand-new Anaheim Arena – located a short distance east of Disneyland and across the Orange Freeway from Angel Stadium – the team received its name, inspired by the 1992 Disney movie The Mighty Ducks.[17] As a result of the name adoption, the arena was named "The Pond",[17] and Disney subsequently made an animated series called Mighty Ducks, featuring a fictional Mighty Ducks of Anaheim team consisting of anthropomorphized ducks led by the Mighty Ducks' mascot, Wildwing.[18] The Ducks have won the Stanley Cup once in 2007.
The Los Angeles area hosts two teams in Major League Soccer (MLS), the top flight of the men's sport in the United States: the LA Galaxy, a charter member of the league, and Los Angeles FC, which began play in 2018. The Galaxy have won five MLS Cups, more than any other MLS team. The two teams play in "El Tráfico", the cross-town derby. Chivas USA was a member of Major League Soccer starting in 2005, but was shut down by the league in 2014.
The Los Angeles Lazers was owned by Jerry Buss and played in the MISL from 1982 to 1988. Buss again owned the Los Angeles United in the CISL but after one season (1993) sold the team. The United relocated to Anaheim and became Anaheim Splash playing from 1993 - 1997 then folding as well.
The area has one past and one current team in U.S. women's professional soccer. The Los Angeles Sol played one season (2009) of Women's Professional Soccer before folding. The area then went more than a decade without a top-flight team, either in WPS or in the current National Women's Soccer League, until an NWSL franchise was granted in 2020; the new side, since unveiled as Angel City FC, started play in March 2022.[20][21]
The sport of Mixed Martial Arts (in the U.S.) was first conceived of and created in the Los Angeles area. Rorion Gracie and Art Davie co-created the MMA promotion, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (the UFC), in 1993 out of Torrance, CA, under the War of the Worlds (W.O.W.) promotion company. The sport of Mixed Martial Arts slowly developed in its first decade. By the year 2005, the UFC had grown into a viable fight promotion company and the sport of MMA was on its way to becoming a mainstream sport in the U.S. and around the world.
In its relatively brief history, the sport of MMA has been well represented by fighters natives of Los Angeles and of California. From Frank Shamrock (Los Angeles) and Tito Oritz (Huntington Beach) in the early era of the sport, to Gilbert Melendez (Santa Ana) and Dan Henderson (Downey) throughout the mid-era of the sport, to Ronda Rousey (Riverside), Henry Cejudo (Los Angeles), Tony Ferguson (Oxnard) as of late.
Santa Monica Beach is believed to be the birthplace of Beach Volleyball
Santa Monica is believed to be the birthplace of beach volleyball in the early 1920s.[23] The weather, the vast sand area and the abundant permanent courts make Los Angeles one of the hotspots for beach volleyball. The first official Beach Volleyball World Championships was held in Los Angeles in from 10 to 13, 1997.[24] Beach Volleyball has been an official Olympic sport since 1996, and during the 2028 Olympics, beach volleyball will be played as an Olympic sport for the first time in the city of Los Angeles.[25] Additionally, many other local beach volleyball tournaments for players of all skill levels are held by multiple entities in various beaches across the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In 2017, CBVA, California Beach Volleyball Association, hosted nearly 1,000 tournaments at 23 beaches in 11 skill or age divisions. There are approximately 8,000 members from California and beyond.[26]
The Los Angeles Wildcats were an XFL team that began play in the league's inaugural 2020 season at Dignity Health Sports Park. The Los Angeles Xtreme were a member of the original XFL begun by Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment and by NBC, a major television network in the United States. The team played its home games in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in the spring of 2001 and won the only championship in XFL history as the league folded after only one season.
Before the Arena Football League collapsed after the 2008 season, the league included the Los Angeles Cobras, the Anaheim Piranhas, and the Los Angeles Avengers. The Cobras played one season at the Los Angeles Sports Arena before folding, mostly due to lack of attendance. The Piranhas played at the then named Arrowhead Pond for two seasons, 1996 and 1997, before folding. The Avengers played their home games at the Staples Center until they folded as well. The AFL was revived in 2010 and returned to the Los Angeles area in 2014 with a new team, the Los Angeles Kiss. The team, owned by a group that included Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, members of the rock band KISS, played in Anaheim at the Honda Center until folding in 2016.[27]
The metropolitan area has two teams in the NBA G League; each is owned by one of the area's two NBA teams. The Ontario Clippers play in Ontario, and the South Bay Lakers play in El Segundo.
The amateur sport of Gaelic football has been played in Los Angeles since the early 20th century. Los Angeles were national champions in 1959.[30]
The Cougars GFC[31] were founded in 2015 and play and train on the westside of Los Angeles. Primarily in Culver City/Santa Monica area. The Cougars season consists of attending tournaments in nearby San Diego, Colorado and the annual USGAA Nationals Championship. As of 2018, the Cougars membership consisted of approximately 50 members (male and female) with the club being 55% American, 45% Irish, some being complete beginners.
The Cougars also play in a 3-game series against their local rivals, The Wild Geese Gaelic Football Club, Inc. founded in 1978[32][full citation needed] who administers Gaelic football activities in nearby Orange County.
Los Angeles's rugby league team the Los Angeles Raiders RLFC are a developing team in the USA Rugby League, formed in 2011. They were aimed to compete as a full team in 2012.[33]
Rugby union
The Los Angeles area has had several amateur clubs. It is home to the Santa Monica Rugby Club, which competes in the Pacific Rugby Premiership and is a member of USA Rugby. The Los Angeles Rugby Club is the second oldest club in the Southern California Rugby Football Union.[34] The Club was founded in 1958 as the Universities Rugby Club. Founding members included Al Williams and Dick Hyland, members of the Gold Medal winning 1924 USA Olympic Rugby Team. Other rugby clubs include the LA Rebellion and the San Fernando Valley Rugby Club.
Los Angeles Astra, a women's professional ultimate frisbee team, was set to debut in 2020 as part of the Western Ultimate League. Their inaugural season in 2020 was canceled due to COVID-19.
USC-UCLA football game at the Rose Bowl; the 2008 edition marked a return to the tradition of both teams wearing color jerseys.Cal State FullertonGoodwin Field, home to CSUF Titan's baseball team. Besides being located in close proximity to each other, Long Beach State and the Cal State Fullerton Titans have competed heavily as conference rivals.
The metropolitan area boasts 10 NCAA Division I athletic programs. The best-known are the two whose football teams compete in the top-level Football Bowl Subdivision, both of which are in the city of Los Angeles proper:
UCLA Bruins — Winners of 116 national team championships, and 259 individual national championships (364 total national championships).[35]
USC Trojans — Winners of 105 national team championships, and 357 individual national championships (448 total national championships).[35]
USC has 11 national championships in football and 7 Heisman Trophy winners. In men's basketball, UCLA has won more titles than any other school (11).[35]
USC has also famously produced more Olympians, overall medalists, and gold medalists than any other American university. If USC were a country entering the 2016 Olympics, its record of 288 all-time medals would place it at rank 16 among all participating countries.[36]
Los Angeles is home to some of the most famous sports venues in the world. L.A. venues have hosted generations of legendary athletes and historic games, including two Olympiads (3rd scheduled for 2028), eight Super Bowls (9th scheduled for 2027), the World Series, NBA and WNBA championships, the Stanley Cup, the FIFA World Cup, the MLS Cup, NCAA championships.
Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum is located in the Exposition Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. The stadium serves as the home to the University of Southern California(USC) Trojans football team. It was also the temporary home of the Los Angeles Rams before the completion of SoFi Stadium in Inglewood July 2020. The facility had a permanent seating capacity of 93,607 for USC football and Rams games, making it the largest football stadium in the Pac-12 Conference and the NFL.[38] A 2018 renovation reduced capacity to 77,500. Conceived as a hallmark of civic pride, the Coliseum was commissioned in 1921 as a memorial to L.A. veterans of World War I. Completed in 1923, it will be the first stadium to have hosted the Summer Olympics three times: 1932, 1984, and 2028.[39] It was declared a National Historic Landmark on July 27, 1984, the day before the opening ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics. The Coliseum is jointly owned by the State of California, Los Angeles County, City of Los Angeles and is managed and operated by the Auxiliary Services Department of the University of Southern California.[40]
The stadium is a component of Hollywood Park, a master planned neighborhood in development on the site of the former Hollywood Park Racetrack. Hollywood Park Casino opened in October 2016, becoming the first establishment to open on the property.[48]
Los Angeles hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. The city first hosted the games in 1932 and hosted once again in 1984. Los Angeles has made a total of ten Summer Olympic bids in its history, more than any other city. Los Angeles along with Athens (1896, 2004), Paris (1900, 1924) and Tokyo (1964, 2020) are the four cities that have hosted the Summer Olympic Games twice. Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games and will become the third city to host the Olympics three times, after London (1908, 1948, 2012) and Paris (1900, 1924, 2024).
1932 Olympic Games
The Opening Ceremony of the 1932 Summer Olympics
The 1932 Summer Olympics marked the first time Los Angeles staged the Olympic Games. It took place during the Great Depression and the games were reported to have produced a $1 million profit for the city.[54] Los Angeles was the only city to submit a bid for the 1932 edition of the Summer Olympics and was selected as the host city at the 21st IOC Session in Rome in 1923. That same year, Lake Placid hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics. The 1932 Summer Olympics marked the second time the US had hosted the Summer Olympics, with St. Louis hosting the 1904 Summer Olympics.
The United States won a total of 103 medals during the games, including 41 gold medals.[55]
Since the games were the tenth edition of the modern Olympic Games, Tenth Street was renamed Olympic Boulevard. Today Olympic Blvd is home to multiple attractions, such as the Grammy Museum.
1984 Olympic Games
The Opening Ceremony of the 1984 Summer Olympics
The 1984 Summer Olympics marked the second time Los Angeles had staged the Olympic Games. Much like the 1932 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles was the only city to submit a bid. Los Angeles was elected as the host city at the 80th IOC Session in Athens in 1978. The cost overruns of the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal and 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow discouraged cities to bid. However, Los Angeles depended on existing venues and infrastructure to host the games, in addition to being entirely privately funded, unlike Moscow and Montreal which were funded by their respective governments. The games produced a $200 million profit and are considered the most successful edition of the Olympic Games, as well as the model for the future editions.[56]
Los Angeles will host the 2028 Summer Olympics. This will mark the third time the Olympic Games are held in Los Angeles. The city will join London and Paris as the only cities to have hosted the Olympics three times.
Upon the USOC reaching a new revenue sharing agreement with the IOC, Los Angeles had been mentioned as a possible bidding city for the 2024 Summer Olympics.[58] In March 2013, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa sent a letter to the USOC confirming the city's interest in bidding for the 2024 Olympics.[59] On September 1, 2015 Los Angeles was chosen as the U.S. candidate to bid for the 2024 Summer Olympics after the USOC withdrew Boston's bid for the 2024 Olympics.[60] After Rome, Hamburg and Budapest withdrew their bids for the 2024 Olympics, only Los Angeles and Paris remained in the race. The IOC then decided to award both Paris and Los Angeles with future editions of the Olympic Games. In July 2017, an agreement was made which secured the 2024 Olympics for Paris and the 2028 Olympics for Los Angeles. Both cities were unanimously elected at the 131st IOC Session in Lima on September 13, 2017.
2028 Paralympic Games
The 2028 Summer Paralympics will be held in Los Angeles. This will mark the first time the Paralympic Games are held in Los Angeles. After Los Angeles hosted the 1984 Summer Olympics, the 1984 Summer Paralympics were held in New York City and Stoke Mandeville. This was before the Olympics and Paralympics were held in the same host city.[61]
Unsuccessful bids
Aside from securing the right to host the 1932, 1984 and 2028 Summer Olympics, Los Angeles has made frequent Olympic bids in the past. Out of the ten bids which the USOC had submitted to the IOC over the years, seven previous official bids were unsuccessful. Los Angeles submitted bids for the 1924, 1928, 1948, 1952, 1956, 1976 and 1980 Summer Olympics, but lost to Paris, Amsterdam, London, Helsinki, Melbourne, Montreal and Moscow respectively.
Los Angeles had expressed interest to the USOC about bidding for the Olympics on multiple occasions, while failing to secure the USOC's support. Seventeen years after hosting the 1984 Olympics, the city became interested in bidding for the 2012 Summer Olympics, but the USOC chose to submit New York City's bid to the IOC. New York ultimately lost to London.[62] Los Angeles later bid to be the US candidate for the 2016 Summer Olympics, but the USOC decided to submit Chicago's bid to the IOC. Chicago ultimately lost to Rio de Janeiro. Following Chicago's defeat, Los Angeles again expressed interest in bidding for a future edition of the Olympic Games. In November 2011 a delegation from Los Angeles attended a seminar at the IOC headquarters for cities interested in bidding on future editions of the Olympic Games.[63] The USOC declined to submit a bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, which was ultimately won by Tokyo. In February 2012, Los Angeles hosted the 5th IOC World Conference on Women and Sport which was attended by then-IOC PresidentJacques Rogge as well as IOC members.[64][65] At the conference Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and IOC Member Anita DeFrantz stated that the city would be interested in hosting the Olympic Games a third time.[66]
Los Angeles was one of the host cities for the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup. The Rose Bowl hosted four matches during the 1999 FIFA Women's World Cup including the final where the United States defeated China 5–4 on penalties.
The United States hosted the FIFA Women's World Cup again in 2003 after China withdrew as hosts due to the SARS outbreak. The Home Depot Center, now known as Dignity Health Sports Park, in Carson was one of the venues that was used in the event. The venue hosted six games, including the final where Germany defeated Sweden 2–1 in sudden death.
Throughout the history of Los Angeles, international sporting events aside from the Olympic Games and FIFA World Cup tournaments have also taken place in the region. Los Angeles has been a hub for international sports for decades.
The Los Angeles Marathon is a running event held in the spring of each calendar year. it is a foot race run over a 26.2 mi (42.2 km) course takes the runners from Dodger Stadium across the City of Los Angeles to a scenic finish just steps from the Santa Monica Pier. Ever since it was first launched after the summer Olympics 1984, it has been an attracted place for professional as well as amateurs athletics from all over the world with a capacity of 24000 making it the fifth-largest-running event in the United States.[70][71]
The ISAWorld Surfing Games have been held in Huntington Beach on four occasions. The 2022 ISA World Surfing Games were the most recent edition of the games to be held in Huntington Beach. They were held from September 16 to September 24, 2022. The ISA World Surfing Games were previously held in Huntington Beach in 2006, 1996 and in 1984.[72][73]
Los Angeles has served as host of the Special Olympics on two occasions.
Los Angeles first hosted the Special Olympics World Summer Games in 1972. Los Angeles hosted the Special Olympics for a second time in 2015, which were held between July 24 to August 2, 2015.
Aside from hosting various incarnations of the championship game, the Los Angeles area hosts the annual Tournament of Roses college football game, commonly known as the Rose Bowl Game annually on New Years day. The games takes place at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena. The game is preceded by the Rose Parade which takes place on Colorado Boulevard.
^Fédération internationale de volleyball. (2002). FIVB corporate profile & sponsorship opportunities sports entertainment for generations to come. FIVB, Fédération international de volleyball. OCLC85303177.
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