Washington’s National Football League franchise will no longer be known as the Redskins. On Thursday, Washington announced it will be known as the Washington Football Team for the 2020 NFL season according to Allen Kim and Wayne Sterling of CNN Sports.
The use of the name, Washington Football Team, is expected to be only temporary. Washington is expected to announce a new name for the 2021 season.
The reason for the change is because the term “Redskin” is considered an offensive slang term among Native Americans in the United States and First Nations among Canada. For over the last decade, there had been pressure by many minority groups to force the Washington Redskins to change their team name. The pressure was recently enhanced due to the recent protesting of the murder of George Floyd.
The Redskins meanwhile have a rich history dating back to 1933 when they wer known as the Boston Redskins. The franchise moved to Washington in 1937, and has been known as the Washington Redskins ever since.
Washington will continue to have burgundy and gold colours, but will no longer have a face of a Native American with feathers on their logo. Instead of the face, they will go with a gold coloured W in a burgundy background for their tempoary logo, and have each player’s number on their helmet in the colour of gold to replace the Native American face.
One must also realize that the Washington Football Team is one of the richest sports organizations in North America. They are currently valued at $3.1 billion. That places them as the 14th richest sports franchise in the world. It will be interesting to see what the overall cost will be to the team for changing their name, and if they will have an increase or decrease in their overall value with the removal of the Redskins term.
In addition to the Redskins, the Edmonton Eskimos of the Canadian Football League have dropped the term “Eskimo” from their franchise as well. They will be known as the Edmonton Football Team until they decide on a name change.
