Photo: Getty Images North America
It's official: The Washington Football Team will now be known as the Washington Commanders.
The NFL's D.C. franchise revealed its new moniker during a live streaming ceremony Wednesday (February 2) morning on their verified social media accounts.
The Commanders also shared several graphics displaying their new name and uniforms, which remain their signature burgundy and gold.
The official announcement comes hours after NBC Washington aerial reporter and photojournalist Brad Freitas shared a video shot from above FedEx Field Tuesday (February 1) evening, which zooms in to show a large "Commanders" graphic inside the stadium, with the announcement already scheduled for Wednesday.
"#SpoilerAlert: Hail to the #WashingtonCommanders #WashingtonFootball #HailYeah #BREAKING #NFL #washingtonfootballteam," Freitas tweeted.
Washington had retired its previous nickname in June 2020 amid years of protests calling it a racial slur against Native Americans, taking on the temporary "Football Team" moniker for the past two seasons.
Last August, Washington shared the latest episode of its YouTube series Making the Brand, which concluded with team president Jason Wright, head coach Ron Rivera and general manager Martin Mayhew going through the final three names, all of which were edited out.
The franchise launched the WashingtonJourney.com website in February, which gave fans the option to decide on a new moniker to be used beginning in 2022.
"We started out with 40,000 submissions and began from there to winnow down to a smaller amount," Wright says in the video. "It gave us a broad view of how the public and the fan base feel about us as an organization and where they want to see us go."
Last April, the franchise said it was still considering roughly 30 names as potential options, with the following eight being included as options shown to fans in the Making the Brand video:
- Armada
- Brigade
- Commanders
- Defenders
- Presidents
- RedHogs
- RedWolves
- Washington Football Team
Wright specified, however, that the eight teams mentioned were "just a selection of names that happened to show up in the video our team produced.