After years of deliberation and uncertainty, the Washington Football team finally revealed their new team name: The Washington Commanders.
By Noah Sodie
On February 2nd, 2022, the Washington Football Team revealed their new name: the Washington Commanders. This announcement ended over a year and a half of uncertainty surrounding the 2-time Super Bowl champions.
“As an organization, we are excited to rally and rise together as one under our new identity while paying homage to our local roots and what it means to represent the nation’s capital,” owner Dan Snyder said in a statement.
The new primary uniforms announced alongside the name feature the same gold and burgundy colors, with additional white and black uniforms. The new primary logo also revealed is a burgundy and gold “W.” The team said in a statement, “This symbol carries forward an element of the Washington Football Team chapter in the franchise’s history and acknowledges the team’s deep Washington roots, while the W’s angled cuts, bolded lines and serifs signify forward movement and progress.” Parts of the logo are also “inspired by military rank insignia.”
Credit: Rob Carr/Getty Images
According to ABC News, on July 13th, 2020, the Washington team announced they would remove their former name, “Redskins” due to decades of pushback from Native American leaders, brought to stark relief by the Black Lives Matter movement.
The days leading up to the announcement had fans on the edge of their seats as information began to leak.
One of these leaks was a fake leak by a clothing company called Sports Extra, which posted pictures on their Twitter account of jerseys and merch with “Red Hogs” shown on the front. They stated they had received an order for these shirts, but the company later revealed it to be a marketing stunt and that no order had come in.
Several seemingly accurate leaks were released that proved the new name would be the Commanders about a day before the announcement. One leak showed a photo of alleged merchandise produced by Nike that had the word Commanders on it. Another discovery on January 26th had one fan notice that the domain Commanders.com was transferred to MarkMonitor, the company the NFL uses for all of their website domains. On the evening of February 1st, NBC4’s Brad Freitas took a photo of a window at FedEx Field that showed a wall that seemed to display the word “Commanders.”
On February 2nd, the rumors proved true as the team announced their new name along with logos, merchandise, and uniforms. While many fans thought the name was too much of a mouthful, most were relieved to end the long process that was the Washington Football Team naming debacle.
Sources:
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZdScTPuVqh/
https://www.instagram.com/p/CZZnngauY1o/
https://www.commanders.com/news/the-washington-football-team-is-now-the-washington-commanders
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/02/02/washington-commanders-logo-uniforms/
https://www.cnn.com/2022/02/01/sport/washington-football-team-names-cec/index.html
https://abcnews.go.com/US/washington-redskins-change-years-backlash/story?id=71744369