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.
San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers are a beneficiary of league scheduling policies. Both the 49ers and the Oakland Raiders share the San Francisco Bay Area market, which is on the West Coast of the United States. This means that the 49ers cannot play home games, road division games or interconference road games against AFC West teams Denver Broncos, Los Angeles Chargers or Oakland Raiders (in seasons that the AFC West and NFC West meet in interconference play) in the early 10:00 a.m. Pacific time slot. In addition, they cannot play interconference home games at the same time or network as the Raiders. As a result, both teams generally have more limited scheduling options, and also benefit by receiving more prime time games than usual (click here for further information). Thus, regardless of the previous season's record, the 49ers receive a disproportionate number of Sunday Night, Monday Night and/or Thursday Night games, compared to the rest of the league.