San Francisco 49ers
The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference (AAFC) and joined the NFL in 1949 when the leagues merged. The 49ers were the first major league professional sports franchise based in San Francisco. The name "49ers" comes from the prospectors who arrived in Northern California in the 1849 Gold Rush. The team is legally and corporately registered as the San Francisco Forty Niners. The team began play at Kezar Stadium in San Francisco before moving across town to Candlestick Park in 1970 and then to Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara in 2014.
National Football League rivalries
The rivalry between the 49ers and Rams began in 1950. The rivalry became one of the most intense in the NFL in the 1970s as the two California-based teams (the Rams then play their home games in Los Angeles whereas the 49ers play their home games in San Francisco) regularly competed for the NFL's NFC West Division title. The two teams have contested 129 games, in which San Francisco leads 64–62–3. After the Rams relocated to St. Louis (in 1995), the rivalry had lost its geographical lore, although games were still intense. The cultural differences between the West Coast (where the 49ers are based) and the Midwest (where the Rams were based) also added to the intensity of the rivalry. In 2016, the Rams moved back to Los Angeles making the rivalry once again West Coast based. "Sports Illustrated" considers it the 8th best of all time in the NFL.