This one was inevitable.
Don Van Natta Jr. and Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that President Donald Trump wants the Commanders to name their forthcoming D.C. stadium after him.
The possibility was percolating throughout the political maneuvering to get the deal done. And given that he has previously demanded that the franchise “IMMEDIATELY” restore the name it abandoned more than five years ago, naming the stadium after him could be viewed as a more-than-acceptable compromise.
“That would be a beautiful name, as it was President Trump who made the rebuilding of the new stadium possible,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told ESPN by email.
An unnamed White House source told ESPN that the naming of the stadium after the president “will probably happen.”
The gesture, if made by the Commanders, will have a cost in the form of lost revenue. Under the term sheet negotiated with the District of Columbia, the Commanders will retain the proceeds of the sale of naming rights to the stadium. If the stadium is named after the President, the Commanders will be foregoing the multi-million-dollar annual payments that a major corporation would otherwise make to have its brand attached to the building.
The reported desire of the Commander-in-Chief to have the Commanders’ stadium named after him comes at a time when he is planning to attend the team’s Week 10 home game against Detroit.
It’s fitting, we suppose, for the fiddling over the naming rights to the upcoming coliseum in the nation’s capital to be happening as the Commanders are being fed to the Lions.
And as the rest of us are dealing with the ongoing consequences of the longest shutdown of the federal government in the history of the republic.
