NFL owners have voted to allow the St Louis Rams to move to a new stadium just outside Los Angeles and the San Diego Chargers will have an option to share the facility.
The Oakland Raiders, who also wanted to move to the area, could move to Los Angeles if San Diego doesn't, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said on Tuesday.
The moves end the NFL's 21-year absence from the nation's second-largest media market.
The compromise - the Chargers and Raiders wanted to share a new stadium in Carson, California, and the Rams wanted to move to nearby Inglewood - was approved 30-2 after the other options did not get the 24 votes needed for approval.
The Chargers can continue to negotiate with San Diego for a new stadium deal, while keeping the option of joining the Rams and owner Stan Kroenke at the $US1.8 billion ($A2.58 billion) complex he is building.
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"Relocation is a painful process. It's painful for the fans, for the communities, for the league in general," Goodell said.
"In some ways it's a bittersweet moment because we were unable to get the kind of facilities done we wanted in their markets."
The Rams, who were based in the LA area from 1946-94, will play in a temporary facility - probably the Los Angeles Coliseum - until the new stadium is ready for the 2019 season.
"Today, with the NFL returning home, Los Angeles cements itself as the epicentre of the sports world," Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement.
"We cannot wait to welcome the Rams and perhaps others soon, as they join a storied line-up of professional franchises, collegiate powerhouses and sports media companies."
The league will give $US100 million to the Chargers and Raiders if either team builds a new stadium in their current markets.
"I will be working over the next several weeks to explore the options we have now created for ourselves to determine the best path forward for the Chargers," the team's chairman, Dean Spanos, said.
The Chargers play 200km south of Inglewood in Qualcomm Stadium. The Raiders also played in Los Angeles from 1982-94 and currently split a facility with Major League Baseball's Oakland Athletics, the last remaining NFL-MLB stadium.
No NFL franchise has moved since the Houston Oilers went to Tennessee in 1997. The Raiders and Rams both left Los Angeles after the 1994 season.
In a report to all 32 teams days before the meetings, Goodell deemed the venues in all three existing cities inadequate and said the stadium proposals lacked certainty. In the case of San Diego, that includes a public vote required for the financing.
The Chargers and the city have been at odds since 2000, when owner Alex Spanos said his team needed to replace Qualcomm Stadium. That was just three years after the venue was expanded to accommodate the Chargers and Super Bowls.
The St Louis proposal calls for an open-air, $US1.1 billion stadium along the Mississippi River north of the Gateway Arch to replace the Edward Jones Dome.
The plan includes $US150 million from the city, $US250 million from Kroenke, at least $US200 million from the league and $US160 million in fan seat licenses.
