In 1958, Walter O\u27Malley moved his baseball team from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. This franchise relocation affected professional sports leagues in two significant ways: it expanded the market for professional sports to cities on the west coast and altered the relationship between sports franchises and their communities. O\u27Malley moved his team not because of a lack of support from either the team\u27s fans or the city-traditional justifications for franchise movement-but rather in hopes of higher financial returns
