Washington football team owner Dan Snyder, seen here at a St. Jude’s fundraiser.
Vinny Cerrato, GM of the Washington football team from 1999-2001 and the team’s Executive Vice President of Football Operations from 2002-2009, has detailed a scenario in which owner Dan Snyder would potentially change the team’s name from “Redskins.”
Cerrato spoke with Boston’s The Sports Hub about the team name and Snyder’s resistance to change. According to him,
It’s not about the money. Dan’s got a ton of money. He’ll fight this. I said this when this first started a year ago or whatever, I said the only way I see him eventually changing the name is if — if — he gets a new stadium out of it, downtown, where old RFK was. And he builds a stadium bigger than [Jerry Jones’s], which he would do, bigger and better than Jerry’s. He gets a Super Bowl. All that.
Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, made waves and headlines not too long ago with the opening of AT&T Stadium in Dallas. The stadium is both the largest in the league–it seats 80,000, but can expand to accommodate 105,000–and the most expensive at the time of its opening, having cost $1.3 billion.
And, as Cerrato implies, new stadiums (and the luxury suites that are a standard part of their construction) are crucial to a city’s ability to secure a Super Bowl. The 2014 Super Bowl was held in New Jersey’s recently-completed MetLife Stadium; the 2016 game will take place in Santa Clara’s still-under-construction Levi’s Stadium; and the 2018 Super Bowl will be held in what will then be brand-new Vikings Stadium in Minneapolis.
Cerrato also had interesting things to say about Snyder’s ongoing resistance to not only change the team name, but to even have a serious discussion about changing it:
It goes back to his childhood. It goes back to his dad. It is deep with him, why that name means so much. And then with Bruce Allen, his dad was the coach, so it means something to him. So I think they will fight it to the end, and Dan has made those comments … It almost now is like Dan vs. the politicians. It’s not the fan base; it’s a fight amongst the politicians and Dan Snyder.
By most accounts, Snyder is committed to the team, but is not necessarily the best person to run it day-to-day. And his regard for the team’s particularly loyal fan base has also come into question over the years.
So it would make sense that his interest in maintaining control of the team’s operations, and in keeping things as they are–up to and including the team’s name–is perhaps more personal than professional.
Still, with a growing chorus of Native Americans, former and current NFL players, and even corporate sponsors beginning to question the level of respect actually inherent to the term “Redskin,” it should be interesting to see how long Snyder can hold out before making demands like the ones Cerrato thinks he has in mind.
The Washington team begins preseason play at home against the New England Patriots on August 7th.
