I was traveling yesterday and missed the big (?) news (?) about how “a senior White House source” has been in touch with Washington Commanders owner Josh Harris about having Donald Trump’s name on the Commanders’ new stadium, something that White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said “would be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible.” (Citation needed on both of those facts, Karoline.)
That Trump wants his name on a football stadium should come as no surprise, as he wants his name on pretty much everything. That Harris is talking to him about it is also unsurprising, as it’s clearly good politics to meet with Trump and at least pretend to listen to him until his attention wanders elsewhere. Actually calling it “Trump Stadium” is another story, for a bunch of reasons:
- Naming rights are worth a lot — as much as $30 million a year, which even spread over 30 years can be worth almost half a billion dollars in present value — and that’s money Harris won’t eagerly give up. He could try for some kind of hybrid name, like “[Corporate Name Here] Stadium at Trump Field,” but he’s likely to be limited to a smaller group of potential buyers if the official brand is saddled with an unwanted partner, especially one as polarizing as Trump.
- ESPN reported that “a source with firsthand knowledge of the process” said Harris “doesn’t have the authority” to choose a name on his own, and “the city would be involved in that decision, and the Park Service would be involved.” That’s not necessarily true: D.C.’s term sheet with Harris grants the team “exclusive rights to manage, operate, market, and control the Stadium,” which presumably includes the right to name it. (Harris is explicitly guaranteed all the proceeds from stadium naming rights.) The city and Park Service could perhaps present some roadblocks in the case of a name they didn’t like, but then so could Trump if he doesn’t get his way.
- Stadium names, to put it mildly, come and go. Unless Trump is successful in getting it contractually guaranteed that his name will be on the stadium in perpetuity, there would be nothing stopping Harris from quietly removing it once he’s out of office. (Or, more hilariously, printing it in the smallest type size imaginable.)
So this is all firmly in the category of things to wait and only take seriously if anyone at the White House still remembers it a month from now, like the time Trump said he wouldn’t allow the stadium to be built unless the Commanders changed back to their old name or the time he threatened to take away NFL tax breaks if players kept protesting racism. Or, you could run story after story about what D.C. residents think and what people on the internet think and what Tip O’Neill would think, that’s also a choice.
“Mr. President, I’d love to name my new stadium after you, but I can’t afford to give up that sweet sweet naming rights cash. Hey, if you could somehow find a gazillion dollars of ̶b̶r̶i̶b̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶n̶e̶y̶ charitable donations to make up for that, I’m sure that problem could go away… isn’t that how you financed tearing down half the White House?”
Call it “I’m an A**h*** Stadium”. It has a certain ring to it…
This stadium isn’t expected to open until 2030 at the earliest, the president will be out of office in 2028.
I’d just stall and not my head a lot before I contacted the sign manufacturer.
“…the president will be out of office in 2028…”
Right, because no-one is above the law and the constitution must be obeyed at all times.
If there is one thing we have learned, it is that the system of checks and balances we all grew up believing were ironclad have disappeared. And not only for the GOP either.
If the rapist-in-chief is still alive in 2029, I wouldn’t count on what’s left of him leaving office.
Karoline has yet to provide citations for any of her lies (so don’t hold your breath on that). :)
Or “Dictator Field”, the “Dic” for short..
There was once a time when a discussion such as this would have been laughable. Unfortunately, we are no longer in that time.
I’ll put this under the “throw a bunch of ridiculous crap at the wall to distract the general public from all the really shitty things you are doing to them” category.
But since we’re conducting a write in campaign on names… I’ll opt for:
“E. Jean Carroll’s Rapist’s Field at Incompetent Draft Dodging Serial Fraudster & Convicted Felon stadium”
Hopefully Harris will charge by the character not the year…
Or, with apologies to Camp Randall Stadium in Wisconsin, “Camp Detention Field”..
These are all BEAUTIFUL comments. Right at this moment my vote is for number 5. “Dictator Field” or AKA “The Dic”.
Wow, a lot of political vitriol on here.
Some facts on the Washington Redskins name:
– Redskins image was to honor Chief John Two Guns White Calf
– Most famous Indian of the 20th Century
– Fought to PRESERVE Native culture
– Also famous for image on Buffalo/Indian Head Nickel (1913)
– Was spokesman for Glacier National Park in Montana
You say “facts on the name” and then talk about the image? (We’ll leave aside for the moment you calling him an “Indian.”)
Dateline Boston, July 5, 1933: The Boston Braves of the NFL change their name to “Redskins.”
Someone who should know said, “So much confusion has been caused by our football team wearing the same name as the Boston National League baseball club that a change appeared to be absolutely necessary. The fact that we have in our head coach, Lone Star Dietz, an Indian, together with several Indian players, has not, as may be suspected, inspired me to select the name Redskins.”
That was George Preston Marshall, who was not honoring anyone with the name, so we can stop the revisionist history that it was.
And the “image” (the helmet logo) didn’t exist until 1971, two years after Marshall died.
We need to stop perpetuating the myth that the name “honors” anybody.
Almost invariably, when somebody posts “FACTS” on the internet, what follows is either not factual or not relevant.
Try some more relevant facts:
George Preston Marshall was a racist and a segregationist. His opinion on anything related to this topic, or any topic, should be ignored.
Language is malleable, but R*dskins has widely been understood to be a racial slur for about 50 years. Not by everybody – true – but enough that the TTAB cancelled the trademark. Certainly, no indigenous group calls itself that.
https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2014/06/a-linguist-on-why-redskin-is-racist-patent-overturned/373198/
There’s no evidence whatsoever that the franchise, its owners or its fans, really GAF about “honoring” the original people of this continent except for a few token efforts that America’s Worst Team Owner tried in order to stave off the inevitable and, of course, the occasional message-board troll.
There *is* evidence that these stereotypical depictions of native Americans in popular culture do real damage to the self-image of native youth and that a large portion of native people’s do not feel remotely “honored” by it.
https://www.ncai.org/news/racist-native-mascots-amid-political-endorsements
A much better way to honor somebody is to actually listen to them.
The existence of some indigenous groups willing to be bought off to support this “honor” does not change that, nor does the fact that most indigenous people think they have much bigger problems to worry about. They do have much bigger problems to worry about, but changing the name of a football team is not asking much.
There is no way for a mascot or cheerleaders to portray a “R*dskin” in a way that does not traffic in dumb stereotypes of what an indigenous person looks like and acts like. So even if one were to accept that the name itself is ok – which it is not – keeping the name makes it much harder for the team to do anything interesting with their logos, branding, band, cheerleaders, etc.
It’s a mascot of a football team that is supposed to represent an entire region. Why would you not want it to be as inclusive as possible? Why would you go to the wall to keep something that is making a whole lot of people feel unwelcome in your stadium? I know the answers to those questions, but I suspect a great many of the WFT’s white fans have never given it a second thought.
The only reason this is an issue is because a lot of white men cannot stand to be told that anything any of them, or their ancestors, have ever done is not the greatest. Even if it really costs them nothing to just be kind.
Hope they’ll agree to it, but only if it’s ‘Trump Memorial Stadium’, and he has to do his part first.