Washington Commanders

[Hageneezz]

So, what do you all think about the new name?

Verstuurd vanaf mijn SM-A505FN met Tapatalk

[pilight]

I don't care for militaristic names

[low]

Barf city. Two years and a ton of amazing options and they went with "Commanders" and a lame "W." Amateurs on Twitter did better in two weeks and no pay.

[pauwoo]

After two years, multiple focus groups, consultants… their fans get Commanders. I can’t advocate for it or rail too hard against it, as I’m indifferent about that team/sport… it’s of course good that they changed it, and comical that after two years they’re going with Commanders.

I’m hopeful that this will at least spawn some solid “get to the choppa” memes when they give up big leads, get eliminated from postseason consideration, etc…

[Déjà Bru]

It does seem a bit weak. Not bad, but tepid.

Let's get something out of the way before it starts growing like a weed. The team did not intend to honor the president's new dog!

[kq76]

Like many of you I'm sure, I heard weeks ago that this was the name that they were going to go with and I just thought, "nah, it's way too boring, they couldn't possibly go with it". But here we are. Wow.

[Ragnar]

The name is boring garbage. I expected nothing else.

[mirrf]

As a Washington fan, this screams "safe, generic name". Its decisions like this which makes a team 8-9 every year.

-To be clear, that is a step up from the 5-11 / 6-10 garbage of the last 30ish years. And I've wanted them to change their name for years, so, um, I got my wish?

[jumpSeat]

It does seem a little weak at first blush. From this distance, it's hard to see the big appeal other than the general association between the city of Washington with political and/or military commanders. Would have been interesting to have been a fly-on-the-wall during the selection committee meetings.

[cephasjames]

It's fairly safe.

[Déjà Bru]

Well, "Commanders" has grown a bit on me after I reviewed this list of other final contenders:

• Washington Admirals
• Washington Armada/Brigade
• Washington Defenders
• Washington Presidents
• Washington Red Hogs, Hogs or Warthogs
• Washington Red Tails, RedTails or Redtails
• Washington Red Wolves, RedWolves or Wolves
• Washington Warriors

The first three are weaker than Commanders. Washington Presidents? What, do they want to invite trouble?

Skip down to Washington Warriors. Do they want to go through this again when fans bring their headdresses and tomahawks to home games?

That leaves the "Red" names. Let me come right out and say that "RedTails" is pandering. Those men deserve all the praise and credit that we heap on them, but there is no valid connection to name a football team in Washington after those airmen of Tuskegee.

Of course, you can say the same thing of Red Hogs and Red Wolves. But those would have been innocent, generic choices. Everybody knows why RedTails was favored by some. I agree with celebrating Black achievement, but don't pander to it.

Do you associate the color Red with Wolves? I don't, and for the second time, I had to go to Wikipedia to see if they exist (they do).

So, Red Hogs, Hogs, or Warthogs. At first I was repulsed ... warthogs? Anything on earth more ugly? Other than that weird looking hairless dog you see once in a while? But, why not? Washington Warthogs would have been good (not bogus Red Hogs — there is a red wattle hog but it's more of a pig than a hog) — and Warthogs would have become 'Hogs unofficially anyway.

[pilight]

Warthogs is easily my favorite of that bunch even though I usually detest alliteration in these instances

[Bluenoser]

Originally Posted by Déjà Bru

Well, "Commanders" has grown a bit on me after I reviewed this list of other final contenders:

• Washington Admirals
• Washington Armada/Brigade
• Washington Defenders
• Washington Presidents
• Washington Red Hogs, Hogs or Warthogs
• Washington Red Tails, RedTails or Redtails
• Washington Red Wolves, RedWolves or Wolves
• Washington Warriors

The first three are weaker than Commanders. Washington Presidents? What, do they want to invite trouble?

Skip down to Washington Warriors. Do they want to go through this again when fans bring their headdresses and tomahawks to home games?

That leaves the "Red" names. Let me come right out and say that "RedTails" is pandering. Those men deserve all the praise and credit that we heap on them, but there is no valid connection to name a football team in Washington after those airmen of Tuskegee.

Of course, you can say the same thing of Red Hogs and Red Wolves. But those would have been innocent, generic choices. Everybody knows why RedTails was favored by some. I agree with celebrating Black achievement, but don't pander to it.

Do you associate the color Red with Wolves? I don't, and for the second time, I had to go to Wikipedia to see if they exist (they do).

So, Red Hogs, Hogs, or Warthogs. At first I was repulsed ... warthogs? Anything on earth more ugly? Other than that weird looking hairless dog you see once in a while? But, why not? Washington Warthogs would have been good (not bogus Red Hogs — there is a red wattle hog but it's more of a pig than a hog) — and Warthogs would have become 'Hogs unofficially anyway.

Do fans of Golden State do that?

[Bub13]

Meh. Most nicknames are pretty silly/inane if you really think about them.

Maybe they should have spiced it up and gone full MiLB like "Yard Goats" or "Whistle Pigs."

[kq76]

I was hoping for something to do with Hogs. I thought maybe they'd drop the t in Warthogs and go with War Hogs. Or maybe Redhawks or Warhawks. One unusual name I saw that next to no one was talking about that I thought would work well was Regiment.

In comparison, they went with about as boring a name/jersey/logo combo you could come up with.

[thehef]

I was fine with the old name, fine with WFT, and fine with Commanders. It's a bit dull, I guess. But how many NFL team nicknames are actually exciting? Bills, Steelers, Patriots, Browns, Packers are all among some pretty boring nicknames, when ya think about it... I mean, if the Dallas team were named something else, and they decided to change their name to Cowboys, would that be all that exciting? More like, whatever...

[rudel.dietrich]

I neither love nor hate it. As a former resident of that area, I am more concerned with removing the current ownership and having a front office that is capable of putting together a consistent roster season after season.

Redskins never should have lasted as long as it did. If this would have been done years ago, we would be settled in with the new name and while we may not love it, the shock of it being new would be gone.


I work in the field of sports economics, so I know some about naming and branding. And it is extremely difficult.
You are never going to get 100% approval for a new franchise name. Renaming or rebranding a franchise is even harder.
Names and brands are global. So you have to make sure a name is culturally appropriate.
Non-offensive and corporate may be boring, but it's just not worth the headache.
Then you have to work around trademarks and existing brands. That is harder today more than ever simply because more stuff exists than ever.

So in the end. Is it perfect? Of course not. But I am sympathetic to some of the challenges involved with rebranding.

And I remember in the early 2000s that the Washington Nationals were met with similar levels of apathy.
But now almost 17 years later while not loved, it has moved into the acceptance category.
Not many love it, but it is what the team is known as and the newness has worn off.

And more than anything, team success will mold the image more than anything. Become relevant and a fixture in the playoffs and people will focus less on the branding and more on your on-the-field play.

As has been said, the Patriots is also a pretty boring name. For decades they were a laughing stock and the team was as close to leaving the Boston area as it could be without it actually happening. But now with 22 years of sustained excellence and half a dozen championships people don't even really think of the name. And the team leaving Boston would be unthinkable.

The Tampa Bay Rays also used to be a laughing stock for their name and their on-the-field lack of performance.
Now they are a model franchise for how to win on a budget and play development, scouting, and drafting.

Competence and winning solves everything.

[Déjà Bru]

Good post ^^^^^

Take the Buffalo Bills, which he mentioned. Can you imagine the uproar if a team chose to rename itself after a bison hunter and wild west showman merely because his nickname happened to coincide with the city name?

As far as I can gather, the only connection that William Cody may have had with Buffalo, New York is his traveling show stopping there occasionally. Yet, nobody questions it now; its alliteration rolls off the tongue (sorry, pilight); and Buffalo with the Bills is unthinkable.

And yes, Washington Nationals would have seemed even worse than Washington Commanders in this conversation but now the area has adopted its Nats, no question. Given time and wins, the Commanders ought to go the same way.

One lingering problem: No pithy, catchy nickname possible. "Coms"? Don't think so. "Mands"? Worse. "Commies"? Heh, that could provoke yet another team name change.

[kq76]

Rudel, you're right. In 20 years no one's going to think twice about it, just like the Nationals.

I asked myself, "what do most of us probably want in sports team nicknames?" and "what's wrong with most of the ones we don't like?". And the answer to that, I think, is we want the nicknames to have something to do with the city (and/or for them to sound cool) and no one can say this name doesn't have anything to do with the city. It's just boring too.

I also like your point that whether a team's name is cool or not largely depends on its history of winning. You're right, before TB12 the Patriots were a joke and people probably thought the nickname sucked. Whereas now, a lot of us have probably changed our opinion on it. Hell, the first Superbowl I remember watching the Patriots were in it (1985) and just because they got blown out I thought they must have sucked, but they made the Superbowl! And since WFT has been a joke for awhile now (moreso their management than on the field), it'd be pretty difficult to satisfy us with any name.

I'm curious, what teams are on people's bottom tier of NFL team nicknames? Excluding the Commanders due to this newness bias, mine are the Browns, Packers, and Texans.

[Leo_The_Lip]

Apparently Snyder dressed as a Warthog for the announcement:

https://www.newscenter1.tv/content/u...ers-scaled.jpg

Corporate decisions don't get any better or worse than this. I worked at a bank that merged franchises in Va, Md and DC and the suirs (mostly lawyers) came up with 'Signet'. My reaction back then was "why are we naming ourselves as a paperback book publisher?"

I'm certain the scumbag NFL owners all think of themselves as "Commanders-in-Chief" so they are all nodding and saying 'Great job, Danny Boy."

In the wake of all the anti-this and that lawsuits, Snyder and the Dolphin owner will be forced to sell (to protect the Kraft and Johnson types). So the real question is, what will the new owner of Washington choose to call the team in order to purge all things Snyder from the public conciousness.