1. The Rams left and came back.
2. The Raiders came from Oakland back in the 1980s for a while, then went back.
3. The Anaheim Ducks were up for sale during the 2005 NHL lockout, and Disney's challenges in finding a buyer at their selling price was a major factor in the NHL's labor issues since then.
4. The Clippers and Chargers are both recent arrivals from San Diego.
5. Los Angeles Kings owner Bruce McNall, who made a name for himself when he acquired Wayne Gretzky in 1988, saw his fortunes collapse in 1993 when he defaulted on a $90 million loan and was forced to sell the Kings in 1994. He was later charged with multiple counts of conspiracy and fraud and served nearly six years in prison as part of a plea deal.
Not only does New York have more teams, but they have more STABLE teams, too. Most of the uncertainty about New York teams over the last 35 years has involved the locations where these teams would play in the NYC region. The Islanders and Devils of the NHL are the only two teams that have had legitimate options for relocation to other cities. This is ironic because they have won a combined seven Stanley Cups between them since 1979.
LA is predatory.
They have eight teams in the four major sports, if you count the Ducks as an LA tam (and Anaheim is as much part of the LA metro area as New Jersey is part of the New York metro area.) Of those eight, only three — the Angels, Kings, and Ducks, are “LA” teams. The rest were taken from sonewhere.
The Dodgers were taken from Brooklyn in one of the great injustices in sports.
The Rams were born in Cleveland, moved to LA, left for St. Louis, and came back to LA.
The Chargers were LA-born, but spent just one year there before moving to San Diego for 56 years.
The Lakers came from Minneapolis (where they featured one of the all-time great basketball players, George Mikan, who served as commissioner of the ABA for a while.)
The Clippers, like the Chargers, were taken from San Diego, where they had relocated from Buffalo (they were originally the Buffalo Braves.)
It wouldn’t surprise me if LA is on the hunt for more teams to poach.