In fact, only 16 percent of Commanders fans think the team should keep its name, while most say they would like the team to change its name. Again.
“I’ve been a fan for a long time, since I was little, and obviously the old name was a bit problematic. I saw that,” said DC resident Andrew Ravenscroft. “I was in favor of a change. But it’s just 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 remove his controversial name from the Redskins and begin a “thorough” search. of a new one. The franchise adopted the Washington Football Team name for 18 months, then unveiled the Commanders name, logo and uniforms in a chilly ceremony at its Landover stadium in February 2022.
Almost immediately, the rebranding was reversed. According to a citywide Washington Post poll that month, 49 percent of district residents said they disliked the name, with 17 percent saying 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 professor of management and marketing at Christopher Newport University. “When you’ve supported something for (87) years or however many years, you’re pretty attached to it, no matter what other people think of that brand. Super Bowls are attached to it, your favorite players are attached to it, you had jerseys, you had jerseys. Getting the fans to support another name, I think, was going to be a challenge, whatever the name.
No NFL team has changed its name three times in a decade without changing regions. It’s expensive, and the league’s bylaws stipulate that a franchise can only change its name, logo and uniforms once every five years. But there are exceptions, including a change of ownership.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that shortly after Snyder sold the team to an investment group led by Josh Harris last July, calls to drop the team’s name seemed intensify.
In an open-ended follow-up question to the last poll, some fans offered a wide variety of suggestions. Three percent of Commanders fans suggested “Redwolves,” 2 percent suggested “Warriors,” 2 percent said “Red Tails” and one smaller percentage placed “Red-skinned potatoes”.
During the 18-month search for a club name, he eliminated Redwolves and Wolves (and variations thereof) due to trademark conflicts. He also excluded Warriors due to its association with Native American themes.
“Such an adoption of potentially Indigenous-adjacent iconography and imagery would not represent a clear change that many communities have so forcefully asked us to adopt, and is frankly what we set out to do when we started this process a year ago,” the president said. said Jason Wright in a lengthy 2021 article on the team’s website.
Matt Price, a Montgomery County resident who was in favor of the team dropping its old name — “It was long overdue and I was very happy to hear it,” he said — believes that the current name is “pretentious and pompous”. »
“Who’s excited about this?” he said.
Price suggested going with a generic animal, but admitted he would be OK with the team returning to its temporary nickname, the Washington Football Team. And he is not alone; 17 percent said they would prefer to return to that name.
But a portion of fans – 16 percent – offered to return the Redskins name to the poll. John Nabinett Jr., a D.C. native who grew up near RFK Stadium, is one of them.
“There’s always the Atlanta Braves … and the Chiefs in the NFL,” he said, pointing to other professional teams with Native American-themed names. “This seems to be bias when it comes to Washington. Commanders are great, but it doesn’t reflect the historical value and things like that of a rich program or team. Commanders is a name, but it is not an identity. The Washington Redskins were an identity.
Washington’s old name was also a source of contention for decades and became an obstacle to the team’s potential return to D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D), who has long lobbied for the franchise of the NFL returns to the district and plays at the federal level. owned by RFK Stadium, made it clear that the team needed to change its name first.
“People tend to forget that one of the main reasons they stopped using the name was the pressure they were under 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 biggest priority (changing the name) because you’d be starting from scratch.
Harris’ group did not rule out a future name change when purchasing the team, but it quickly ruled out a return to the old name.
“That ship has sailed,” Mitch Rales, the senior partner in Harris’ ownership group, said in September. “We are not going to question the past. We are talking about the future. We want to build the future and not have a culture of division in which we are engaged. We’re going to look at everything at the end of the year and think about a lot of different things and do a lot of testing and see what people think. And we will learn. The beauty is that we have time to look at all of this intelligently and make decisions based on the fans.
A person with knowledge of the owner’s plans reiterated this month that there are no immediate plans to change the name. The group has repeatedly stressed that it has other priorities. This offseason, the Commanders overhauled their front office, coaching staff and roster. Owners have invested more than $75 million in upgrades to Landover Stadium and the Ashburn practice facility. 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 new facility and accessory development.
Although the name (and logo) remains a point of contention for some, the new ownership has been a source of optimism for many Commanders fans.
A 77 percent majority of Commanders fans (and Washington area residents in general) have a positive opinion of Harris’ leadership. Among District Commanders fans, 83 percent are optimistic about Harris.
“I like what he did,” Ravenscroft said. “We haven’t had much success yet, but he’s got a leg up on Dan Snyder.”
The NFL’s Washington Team was once the focal point of D.C. sports, but its popularity has waned in recent years. Now less than half of DC-area sports fans say they support the Commanders, ranking below the Nationals (59%) and Capitals (50%). Fewer than four in ten local sports fans say they are Wizards fans (37%).
Price, like Ravenscroft and Nabinett, hopes Harris returns the franchise 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 new ownership, it almost gives permission to be a big fan again.”
The poll was conducted April 19-29 by The Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government among a random sample of 1,683 adult residents of the Washington, D.C., area, including 1,295 fans sports 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 smaller among subsets of each .
Scott Clement contributed to this report.