The Washington Commanders will be returning to Washington, D.C.
After weeks of speculation, District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser and Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris announced Monday that the city and team reached an agreement to bring the team back to Washington.
“Welcome home,” Bowser said Monday at a press conference at the National Press Club. “We are so happy talking about bringing our team home to the sports capital, back to RFK, where they belong. And I couldn’t be more excited for our city, our team, and our fans.”
The district and the team reached a $3.7 billion deal to build a new 65,000-seat football stadium at the site of the abandoned Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, where the team played for 35 seasons. The announcement comes after months of negotiations between Bowser and the franchise.
The deal is a significant win for Bowser, who has spent much of her decade in office pursuing the team’s return to the RFK Stadium site for redevelopment.
Let’s bring this franchise back to DC pic.twitter.com/iGb7u6dbvB
— Washington Commanders (@Commanders) April 28, 2025
Harris, who bought the franchise in 2023, said the investment “is about so much more than building a stadium — it’s about a once-in-a-generation opportunity to create a catalyst for long-term, transformational economic growth here in D.C.”
“This has been a vision of ours since we bought the team, bought the club,” Harris noted. “It was in our original plan. It’s been a journey.”
In December 2024, a long-shot vote passed in the Senate to give the city authority over the 170-acre RFK site, which is federally owned. The Commanders have been playing in Landover, Maryland, since 1997.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, who grew up a fan of the team, reflected on his fond memories of attending games at RFK Stadium. He noted that a generation of fans had no similar experiences but said, “The next ones will, and I could not be more excited for them.”
“This will be critical in revitalizing an area that has been dormant and undeveloped for nearly 30 years when the team first left here in the district,” Goodell said.
Bowser wants $500 million of the project to come from district taxpayers, and the remaining bill will be funded by the Commanders. Some reporting has the expected taxpayer costs closer to $800 million. The Commanders’ investment, coming in around $2.7 billion, marks the single largest private investment into the district in its history.
The D.C. Council will have to approve the deal, and some local lawmakers oppose using taxpayer funds for a stadium project.
“The D.C. treasury should not be paying toward a stadium,” Council Chairman Phil Mendelson told the Washington Post earlier this month.
WASHINGTON COMMANDERS GET GREEN LIGHT FOR NEW DC STADIUM IN GOVERNMENT FUNDING BILL
According to a press release from Bowser’s office, the city will develop a new Kingman Park district, slated to include housing with an estimated 5,000 units, parks, retail, and an indoor and outdoor recreational sports complex. The city also touted public transportation available to RFK Stadium, as it is Metro and bus accessible.
If the plan successfully moves forward, the stadium will open in 2030. The Commanders have no plans to relocate their corporate office in College Park, Maryland, nor their training facility in Ashburn, Virginia.
