From the NFL.MLB,NHL and nba?
Rams started in Cleveland,went to Los Angeles,then Anaheim,then St. Louis and then back to LA.
The maximum for MLB is three, by three teams each:
A’s from Philadelphia to Kansas City to Oakland
Braves from Boston to Milwaukee to Atlanta
The original Milwaukee Brewers to St. Louis to become the Browns (1902) and then to Baltimore to become the Orioles (1954)
Ha! Baltimore stole the Browns twice!
Of the current NFL franchises, surprisingly few have relocated from one city to another. For purposes of this conversation, I’m not including the instances when a team moved to a different stadium within the same market area, even if they changed their “city name” as a result (such as the Boston -> New England Patriots, and the Phoenix -> Arizona Cardinals; I’d also include the Rams moving from LA to Anaheim in that list).
Actual relocations:
Cardinals: started in Chicago, moved to St. Louis for 1960, then for Phoenix in 1988.
Bears: played their first season in Decatur, IL, as the Staleys (sponsored by the Staley Starch Company), in the first year of what became the NFL, before moving to Chicago in 1921.
Lions: originally were the Portsmouth (OH) Spartans, and moved to Detroit in 1934.
Colts: formed in 1953 in Baltimore out of the remnants of another team (the Dallas Texans), though the NFL considers the team to have “started fresh” as an expansion team in '53. Moved to Indianapolis in 1984.
Chiefs: formed as the Dallas Texans when the AFL started in 1960; moved to Kansas City in 1963.
**Raiders: **moved to Los Angeles in 1982; moved back to Oakland in 1995.
Chargers: formed in Los Angeles in 1960, but moved to San Diego after a single season in LA.
Rams: formed in Cleveland in 1937. Moved to Los Angeles in 1946, then to St. Louis in 1995, and back to Los Angeles in 2016.
Titans: formed in Houston as the Oilers in 1960. Moved to Tennessee in 1997, and renamed as the Titans in 1999.
Redskins: formed in Boston (as the Braves) in 1932; moved to Washington in 1937.
Ravens: formed as the Cleveland Browns in 1946; moved to Baltimore, and became the Ravens, in 1996. However, this is an odd case – while Art Modell moved the team that was the Browns, part of the condition of the move was that they left the team name (and its history) behind. The NFL considers the current Browns team (which began play in 1999) as the same “team” as the original one, and that the Ravens were essentially a new entry to the league in '96.
So, the Rams (now making their third “real” move) are the “winner” among NFL teams; among the other 31 franchises, only the Raiders and Cardinals have moved more than once. And, only six teams – Rams, Raiders, Colts, Cardinals, Titans, and the Ravens (if you consider them to have once been the Browns) have played a significant number of seasons in more than one market.
Well, technically, that’s two moves, not three.
The NBA has at least two three-move teams I can think of, those being the Hawks, who have played in the Quad Cities, Milwaukee, St. Louis and now Atlanta; and the Kings, who started as the Rochester Royals, then Cincinnati Royals, then Kansas City Kings, then Sacramento. I am pretty sure those are the only clear-cut case of a three-move team in major North American sports. As the KC Kings played some games in Omaha, they get extra credit.
The NHL has the weird case of the California Golden Seals, who moved to Cleveland and became the Barons (1) who then sort of moved to Minneapolis by merging, kind of, with the North Stars (2) who later moved to Dallas and became the Stars (3).
They were the KC-Omaha Kings for several years, so it was more than some games.
In ABA, one franchise played in Houston, Raleigh, Charlotte, Greensboro, and Winston-Salem (all four cities in the same time frame as the Carolina Cougars), and St. Louis. They were planning on moving to Salt Lake City when the league folded.
The Titans played in Memphis in their first season in 1997, then moved to their present home in Nashville the following season (as the Oilers), so I’d count that as two moves for them, even though it was between two cities within the same state.
Why did they play a season in Memphis and then move to Nashville? I think if this was the intention all along (such as waiting on a stadium), it only counts as one move, similar to how I don’t think you’d credit the Saints with a couple extra moves while they were waiting for Superdome repairs. If they intended to settle in Memphis, and then got a better deal from Nashville, it should count as two.
The NHL has the Kansas City Scouts (74-76) moving to the Colorado Rockies (76-82) to the New Jersey Devils (82-present). I honestly don’t remember those first two teams.
Yes, Memphis was intended to be temporary home all along. The Tennessee Oilers (soon to be Titans) was marketing itself as an all-Tennessee team, and Nashville didn’t have a temporary stadium which was considered adequate while the current stadium was under construction. As it turned out, attendance in Memphis was so dismal that they ended up playing one season at Vanderbilt Stadium anyway.
The USFL had a team which spent all three years of its existence in a different city. The Breakers started out in Boston in 1983, then moved to New Orleans in 1984, and finally spent 1985 in Portland just before the league folded.
Indeed; to me, it’s not much different than the Bears playing in Champaign (at the University of Illinois’ stadium) in 2002, while Soldier Field was being renovated. I’m not sure that I’d count that one year in Memphis as a separate “move” for the Titans franchise.
Oh, totally forgot about the Bears playing a season downstate. What other teams have done something similar? I know while CenturyLink was being constructed, the Seahawks played two seasons at Husky Field, but that’s only cross-city. How many (NFL) teams have played a season or more in a different metro area simply due to stadium (re)construction?
ETA: three mentioned so far in thread: Titans, Saints, and Bears.
I know this doesn’t help the thread much, but minnesota losing the north stars to Dallas was a huge deal for me as a young kid. Now we have the minnesota wild. What a weak name. The minnesota north stars was perfect. Oh well. Minnesota used to have the lakers. Now the Timberwolves. Facepalm
The Eagles and Steelers also merged in 1943 for one season. They played half the games in Philly and half in Pittsburgh:
The same thing happened the year after with the Cardinals and Steelers:
Not in completely different metro areas, but when they were still in Seattle the Sonics played a season (or 2?) at the Tacoma Dome while the Key Center was being renovated. Similarly the Golden State Warriors played in San Jose while their arena in Oakland was under renovation. And in the 1970s the New York Giants played at the Yale Bowl in Connecticut for a year just before Giants Stadium opened.
Actually they played in Yale Bowl for two seasons, 1973 and 1974.
Oakland Raiders played their first season in Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, and their second season at Candlestick Park, before moving to Frank Youell Field in Oakland in their third season,
The San Francisco Warriors became the Golden State Warriors in 1971 when it was expected that they would play throughout the state. The actually played six games in San Diego, and it was expected that they would play in Daly City, San Francisco, and Oakland, but they never played anywhere else than Oakland.
Actually the team name was the Tri-Cities Blackhawks representing Moline, Illinois; Rock Island, Illinois; and Davenport, Iowa though the area was already being referred to as the Quad-Cities which included East Moline.
I should have said three cities.
As for the MLB team that’s been in the same city the longest, it’s the Chicago Cubs, which started out as the Chicago White Stockings in 1876. (The Braves, originally the Boston Red Stockings, are the only other surviving founding member of the N.L.)