Los Angeles Buccaneers

The Los Angeles Buccaneers were a traveling team in the National Football League during their one season 1926, ostensibly representing the city of Los Angeles, California. Like the Los Angeles Wildcats of the first American Football League, the team never actually played a league game in Los Angeles. It was operated out of Chicago with players from California colleges. The historian Michael McCambridge has stated that the Buccaneers originally planned to play in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum and became a road team only after the Coliseum Commission banned pro teams from its stadium. However, the difficulty of transcontinental travel in the era before modern air travel must have been a major factor in the decision to base the team in the Midwest, especially considering there were numerous other stadium options available for the league (Gilmore Stadium, the Rose Bowl and Wrigley Field of Los Angeles being among them) had the league desired to pursue that route. Despite being rejected by the Coliseum, the Buccaneers did play two true home games in Los Angeles, both of them exhibition games against the AFL's New York Yankees in January 1927. The Buccaneers also played two games in San Francisco, including the last game of the Buccaneers' existence, an exhibition game against the Wildcats, with the Buccaneers being shut out, 17-0, on January 23, 1927. Because of this, the NFL officially considers the team's home city to be Los Angeles.