Officials in the District of Columbia are pressuring Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder to change the franchise’s name.
Both Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives, and D.C. Deputy Mayor John Falcicchio said on Wednesday that they would not allow Snyder to build a new Redskins stadium at the current site of the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium, which is federal property, unless he changes the team name, according to the Washington Post.
“I call on Dan Snyder once again to face that reality, since he does still desperately want to be in the nation’s capital,” Norton said. “He has got a problem he can’t get around — and he particularly can’t get around it today, after the George Floyd killing.”
“There is no viable path, locally or federally, for the Washington football team to return to Washington, D.C., without first changing the team name,” Falcicchio added.
Additionally, 87 investors and shareholders worth a combined $620 billion sent signed letters Nike, FedEx, and PepsiCo calling on the companies to cut ties with the Washington, D.C., football team until it is renamed, according to Adweek.
Calls for the team to change its name were renewed amid the recent spotlight put on racial injustice and inequality following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who died in Minneapolis police custody in May. His death sparked nationwide demonstrations, during which some protesters have sought to tear down statues commemorating historical figures tied to racism, slavery, and oppression.
Last month, a statue of former Redskins owner George Preston Marshall, who started the franchise in the 1930s, was removed from outside RFK Stadium amid protests.
