Washington Football Team Picks Temporary Name as it Rebrands

The NFL team in Washington, D.C., will go by the “Washington Football Team” until a new name is adopted.

The team announced the temporary rebrand Thursday on Twitter, while ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that, “This is not a final renaming and rebranding for the team; this is the name it wants to use until pending adoption of a new name at some point in the future.”

The franchise, which moved from Boston to Washington, D.C., in 1937, was known as the Redskins from 1933 until earlier this month. On July 13, the team released a statement “announcing we will be retiring the Redskins name and logo.”

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The pressure to change the name increased following the death of George Floyd in May. Dozens of investment firms and shareholders asked Nike, FedEx and PepsiCo to terminate their business relationships with the team due to the controversial name — a racist slur stemming from bounties paid to white settlers in exchange for the skins of Native American adults and children as proof of their murders. FedEx issued a July 2 statement, saying they would remove their signage from FedExField unless the name was changed.

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The Washington franchise and owner Daniel Snyder eventually started a review of its mascot and logo, which led to the official dropping of the name.

Snyder, who has said in the past that he would never change the team’s name, said in the team’s July 3 press release that “This process allows the team to take into account not only the proud tradition and history of the franchise but also input from our alumni, the organization, sponsors, the National Football League and the local community it is proud to represent on and off the field.”

Schefter reported that the team hopes to have the Redskins name removed from physical and digital space by the time they are scheduled to play the Philadelphia Eagles Sept. 13.

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