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News January 05, 2022

Washington Football Team Set to Announce New Name

New uniforms, helmets and an avalanche of branded merchandise is expected to follow the Feb. 2 unveiling.

By  Christopher Ruvo

One of the most high-profile rebrands in recent memory is complete.

The Washington Football Team announced that it has arrived at its new name and branding. The team, the fifth most valuable National Football League (NFL) franchise with a valuation of $4.2 billion as determined by Forbes, plans to unveil the new name and uniforms on Feb. 2, 2022. An avalanche of branded merchandise is expected to follow.

This week, the team gave a teaser preview of the new name and uniforms in social media posts.

The Washington Football Team was formerly known as the Washington Redskins. The mascot name was the subject of mounting criticism for being a racist slur against indigenous people. While long resistant to changing the club name, the organization decided in 2020 that it was time to retire the Redskins branding – a decision met by both praise and criticism.

Looking to the future, the team didn’t just want to pick a new name out of a hat.

As such, it temporarily took on the name Washington Football Team and embarked on a thorough rebranding effort that included input from fans and legal analysis to ensure the eventual new moniker would not encounter copyright issues. Potential trademark problems led the organization to rule out a couple fan favorites, including Wolves and RedWolves.

“Once we began looking into Wolves…we became aware of a notable challenge: trademarks held by other teams would limit our ability to make the name our own. And without Wolves, variations like RedWolves wouldn’t have been viable either for these and other reasons,” a team press release said.

In September, the team narrowed its list of potential monikers down to eight, including the now-eliminated RedWolves. The names were Red Hogs, Defenders, Armada, Presidents, Brigade, Commanders and Washington Football Team.

The club has documented the rebranding journey online through a partnership with Vistaprint, the flagship division of Top 40 promotional products distributor Cimpress (asi/162149). In June 2021, the team named Vistaprint its official design partner.