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Washington’s Racist NFL Team Name Has Outlasted Everything Except Cold, Hard Cash
An ownership change should be next
You could write a comic history of Washington, D.C., by listing things that didn’t outlive the name of the city’s NFL franchise. The racist epithet survived the removed-on-Juneteenth statue of team founder George Preston Marshall, who was the reason one of America’s Blackest cities was the last to integrate its NFL team. It outlasted the political career of former mayor Marion Barry, the life of go-go legend Chuck Brown, even D.C.’s status as a majority-Black city. Until about a week ago, it seemed the only D.C.-related things as durable as the team’s name were current owner Dan Snyder’s reputation for ineptitude and Republicans’ opposition to granting the District statehood.
Then last week, The Money finally spoke. FedEx, which paid $205 million to be the team’s naming rights sponsor, formally asked Snyder to change the name. Walmart and Target — along with Nike, which makes and sells the team’s official apparel — have pulled all team merch from their websites. Together, the companies are worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Snyder and have the clout to lean on the other 31 NFL owners, too. It’s a near-certainty that if football is played in D.C. this year, the home team won’t go by a racial slur.
