1 week Ago By Thom Loverro
There were many circumstances that led to the moment Monday when District Mayor Muriel Bowser and Washington Commanders owners announced a new $3.7 billion stadium deal on the old RFK stadium site — and may ultimately lead to it actually happening. Many of the most important circumstances were minuses.
Absences. Disappearances. First, the Redskins name disappeared.
No one in power in this city would be publicly talking about spending a billion dollars in public funds for a team named the Washington Redskins. Oh, they talked privately or tried to mask it. Former Mayor Anthony Williams pitched it as part of the city’s 2012 Olympic bid.
So did Bowser for the 2024 bid — both failures. Adrian Fenty went to Ashburn to talk about a new stadium, and Bruce Allen and city officials went to Tampa on a fact-finding mission of sorts to see how the Buccaneers — Allen’s former employer — had set up their stadium and headquarters complex. But city officials knew it was all a non-starter as long as the team was identified with a name that many — though not the majority of American Indians, based on two independent polls — saw as racially offensive.
Then, in the backlash to George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police in May 2020, the team announced it was dropping the Redskins name. For a couple of years they were known as the Washington Football Team. But the team could have been called the Washington Golden Angels by then and still no one was going to back public funding for a stadium as long as Dan Snyder owned the team.
He was a polarizing figure who would become publicly toxic after a Washington Post series detailing employees making sexual harassment allegations within the organization. That blew up into a congressional investigation, state probes of financial misconduct and ultimately the NFL forcing Snyder to sell the team. No one in power in this city would be publicly talking about spending a billion dollars in public funds for a team owned by Snyder.
But there was one key addition, not subtraction, to the circumstances that led to a stadium deal. It is the sun that all the planets of the Washington Commanders revolve around. And that was Jayden Daniels, last season’s rookie quarterback, who changed the trajectory of a franchise.
Too much? I don’t think so. Monday’s press conference was as much a celebration of a team that went 12-5 and made it to the NFC title game for the first time since the team still played at old RFK Stadium as it was a stadium announcement. “Winning makes this a lot easier,” said one District official familiar with the stadium negotiations.
Specifically, winning after decades of losing. Let’s not forget owner Jack Kent Cooke had three Super Bowls in his pocket. Look where that stadium wound up.
New owner Josh Harris and his group get credit of course for the positive changes surrounding this team since they took over in the summer of 2023. But let’s face it — the DMV felt like an inmate seeing sunlight for the first time after 25 years of solitary. It was hard not to be the good guy — even after raising ticket prices — when the bad guy was so, so bad.
City officials have acknowledged privately that a 4-13 season like Harris’ first year of ownership would have made their pitch a tougher sell, given all the recent negative baggage the new owner inherited. Now everybody wants to be in the Jayden Daniels business, and any opposition will feel like Dean Wormer shutting down Delta House. There will be opposition.
The deal still needs city council approval, and there is already a “Homes Not Stadiums” movement that has asked the D.C. Board of Elections to put on the ballot an initiative that would create a new “Special Purpose Zone” on the RFK grounds that would prohibit the construction and use of a stadium or arena for a professional sports team.
There will be other voices in a neighborhood filled with Capitol Hill staffers, lobbyists and lawyers who have enjoyed peace and quiet since RFK has remained empty. Any delay could escalate costs and give pause to Commanders owners who see the doors opening to a new District stadium by 2030, leaving Northwest Stadium and Landover behind. But the momentum for this stadium is strong — NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was at the press conference and spoke of his fond memories growing up in Washington (his father was U.
S. Senator Charles Goodell from New York) and going to see games at RFK Stadium. “I was thinking on the way down here today (about) all the great times I had going to RFK Stadium,” Goodell said.
“And now a new generation of kids are going to be able to experience that, and I really, truly believe it’s great for this community.” Nostalgia is a powerful marketing tool. So is Jayden Daniels.
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