It’s been two years since Washington’s NFL franchise unveiled its new name as the Commanders, and most DC-area fans still don’t like it.
According to an April Washington Post-Schar School poll, a majority of local sports fans (54 percent) say they hate or don’t like the name. Among local Commanders fans alone, antipathy toward the name is even starker: 58 percent say they don’t like it.
In fact, only 16 percent of Commanders fans believe the team should keep the name, while most They say they would like the team to change to a different name. Again.
“I’ve been a fan for a long time, since I was a little kid, and obviously the old name was a bit problematic. I saw that,” said DC resident Andrew Ravenscroft. “I was in favor of changing it. But it’s a bit of a strange name.”
In July 2020, after then-owner Daniel Snyder faced increasing pressure from sponsors and local officials, the team announced it would retire its controversial “Redskins” name and begin a “thorough” search for a new one. The franchise adopted the Washington Football Team name for 18 months and then unveiled the Commanders’ name, logo and uniforms during a cold ceremony at their Landover Stadium in February 2022.
Almost immediately, the rebranding came under fire. According to a citywide Washington Post poll conducted that month, 49 percent of district residents reported they didn’t like the name, including 17 percent who said they hated it. A similar 48 percent of D.C. residents don’t like the team’s name this spring, including 15 percent who say they hate it.
“I’m not surprised,” said George Perry, the team’s former vice president of strategic marketing and now a management and marketing instructor at Christopher Newport University. “When you’ve been supporting something for (87) years or however many years it has been, you’re pretty attached to it, no matter what other people feel about that brand. Super Bowls are attached to it, your favorite players are attached to it, you had jerseys, you had jerseys. “I think getting fans to support another name was going to be a challenge no matter what the name was.”
No NFL team has changed its name three times in a decade without changing regions. Doing so is expensive, and league bylaws stipulate that a franchise can change its name, logo and uniforms only once every five years. But there are exceptions, including change of ownership.
Perhaps it was no surprise, then, that shortly after Snyder sold the team to an investment group led by Josh Harris last July, calls for the team to drop its name seemed to intensify.
In a follow-up open-ended question in the latest survey, some fans volunteered suggestions, which varied widely. Three percent of Commanders fans offered “Redwolves,” another 2 percent suggested “Warriors,” 2 percent said “Red tails” and a minor The percentage raised “Red-skinned potatoes.”
During the 18-month search for a name, the club dropped Redwolves and Wolves (and their variations) due to trademark conflicts. He also ruled out Warriors due to its association with Native American themes.
“Such adoption of potentially Native-adjacent iconography and imagery would not represent a clear change that many communities have advocated so strongly for us to adopt and that, frankly, we set out to make when we began this process a year ago,” the President said. Jason Wright said in a lengthy 2021 post on the team’s website.
Matt Price, a Montgomery County resident who was in favor of the team changing the old name (“It was necessary and I was very happy to hear it,” he said) believes the current name is “pretentious and pompous.” “
“Who gets excited about that?” he said.
Price suggested choosing a generic animal, but admitted that he would be okay with the team reverting to its temporary nickname, the Washington Football Team. And he is not alone; 17 percent said they would prefer to change that name again.
But a handful of fans (16 percent) volunteered to return the name “Redskins” in the survey. John Nabinett Jr., a D.C. native who grew up near RFK Stadium, is among them.
“You still have the Atlanta Braves hanging around … and the Chiefs in the NFL,” he said, pointing out other professional teams with Native American-themed names. “That seems like a bias when it comes to Washington. Commanders is fine, but it doesn’t reflect the historical value and stuff of a rich program or team. Commanders is a name, but it is not an identity. “Washington Redskins was an identity.”
Washington’s old name was also a source of controversy for decades and became a barrier to the team’s possible return to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who has long pushed for the franchise to NFL returns to the District and plays at the federal level. ownership of RFK Stadium, made it clear that the team first had to change its name.
“People tend to forget that one of the main reasons they stopped using that name was the pressure they received from their sponsors,” Perry said. “All these other sponsors said, ‘Hey, if you don’t change the name, we’re not going to give you any money.’ That hasn’t necessarily changed. … If it were me, I don’t think it would be my top priority (to change the name) because you’d be starting from scratch again.”
Harris’ group did not rule out a future name change when it purchased the team, but quickly ruled out returning to the previous name.
“That ship has sailed,” Mitch Rales, the principal partner in Harris’ ownership group, said in September. “We are not going to re-litigate the past. We are about the future. Our goal is to build the future and not have a divisive culture that we are involved in. We’re going to look at everything when the end of the year comes and we’ll think about a lot of different things and do a lot of testing and see. what people think. And we will learn. The good thing is that we have time to look at all this intelligently and make decisions based on the fans.”
A person with knowledge of the property’s plans reiterated this month that he has no immediate plans to change the name. The group has repeatedly stressed that it has other priorities. This offseason, the Commanders revamped their front office, coaching staff and player roster. The owners have also invested more than $75 million in improvements to their stadium in Landover and practice facility in Ashburn. They are also seeking a new naming rights partner for the current stadium and awaiting the outcome of legislation that could make the RFK site available for a new facility and ancillary development.
Even though the name (and logo) remains a point of contention for some, the new property has been a source of optimism for many Commanders fans.
A 77 percent majority of Commanders fans (and DC area residents in general) have a positive opinion of Harris’ leadership. Among Commanders fans in the District, 83 percent are optimistic about Harris.
“I like what he’s done,” Ravenscroft said. “We haven’t had much success yet, but he’s miles ahead of Dan Snyder.”
Washington’s NFL team was once the focal point of DC sports, but its popularity has declined in recent years. Now less than half of DC area sports fans say they support the Commanders, ranking below the Nationals (59 percent) and Capitals (50 percent). Fewer than four in 10 local sports fans say they are Wizards fans (37 percent).
Price, like Ravenscroft and Nabinett, hopes Harris takes the franchise back to what it once was.
“It was embarrassing to have such a horrible owner, and it was certainly embarrassing to have such a racist name,” Price said. “So, yeah, with a new owner, it almost gives permission to be a big fan again.”
The survey was conducted April 19-29 by The Post and the Schar School of Politics and Government at George Mason University among a random sample of 1,683 adult residents in the Washington, D.C., area, including 1,295 sports fans and 640 Commanders fans. The overall margin of error is plus or minus 3.2 percentage points and is 3.6 points among sports fans, 5.1 points among Commanders fans, and lower among subsets of each.
Scott Clement contributed to this report.
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