Finally, some stadium news that isn’t about the Los Angeles Angels: While everyone else was distracted by the news about Space Force, the spending bill signed by President Trump last week also neglected to include approval for transferring RFK Stadium and its surrounding land from the National Park Service to the Washington, D.C. government, which is considering possibly using it for an NFL stadium:
The attempted measure was a long-term lease extension to the District that would have allowed for development of the 190-acre federal parcel of land along the Anacostia River. But it was ultimately omitted from the massive federal spending bill that was approved last week.
Because it probably was the final “must-pass” bill that Congress will consider for months — and perhaps until late 2020 — the Redskins will have limited opportunities to get access to the land through such channels.
There are a bunch of reasons why the land transfer didn’t go through, from federal officials not trusting city officials to lots of people not liking Snyder’s team’s name to nobody caring about the team because they suck. (The Washington Post article about this made sure to mention the team’s 3-11 record.) The land could still be transferred — and it could even still be transferred and then D.C. could decide not to use it for a stadium, especially with number-one council stadium advocate Jack Evans getting booted out of office for ethics violations — but the tide doesn’t seem to be running that way right now. Whether this is a good thing or a bad thing for holding the line on public subsidies depends on what Snyder ends up doing (he’s already proposed building a stadium in a version of northern Virginia in a postapocalyptic future where the Earth’s rotation has been thrown off its axis), but at least it gives us another reason to laugh and point at him besides nobody showing up for his team’s games, and that’s always welcome on a Monday.