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Don Van Natta Jr.
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Don Van Natta Jr.
ESPN senior writer
- Host and co-executive producer of the new ESPN series, “Backstory”
- Member of three Pulitzer Prize-winning teams for national, explanatory and public service journalism
- Author of three books, including the New York Times bestseller “First of the Tea: Presidential Hackers, Duffers, and Cheaters from Taft to Bush.”
- 24-year newspaper career at The New York Times and Miami Herald
President Donald Trump wants Washington Commanders Multiple sources with knowledge of the situation told ESPN that their planned $3.7 billion stadium will be named after him.
A senior White House source said there has been backchannel communication with a member of the Commanders’ ownership group, led by Josh Harris, to convey Trump’s desire to keep the domed stadium in the nation’s capital named after him. The new stadium is being built on the site of the old RFK Stadium which was home to the team from 1961 to 1996.
“It would be a beautiful name, because it was President Trump who made the reconstruction of the new stadium possible,” White House press secretary Carolyn Leavitt told ESPN via email Friday night.
Leavitt declined to answer additional questions, but a senior White House source told ESPN: “It’s what the president wants, and it probably will happen.”
A spokesman for the commander declined to comment Saturday. However, a team source said the organization had spent several days preparing for Trump’s appearance at a Commander’s home game. detroit lions On Sunday afternoon. Trump will attend the game as Harris’ guest and is expected to take part in halftime activities honoring the military.
The team source said that although commanders expected to potentially have conversations with Trump about the new stadium during the game, there have been no formal conversations to date.
The Commanders retain naming rights for the new stadium, which will likely be sold to a corporate sponsor. But a source with direct knowledge of the process said it would be a separate decision from commemorating a person in the stadium’s name.
The decision will likely depend on the District of Columbia Council, which will lease the stadium to the Commanders, and the National Park Service, which manages federal government land at the old RFK Stadium site, where the new stadium will be built at its scheduled opening in 2030.
“The team doesn’t have the rights. They can’t name the stadium as they wish,” the source said. “The city will be involved in that decision, and the Park Service will be involved as well.”
In April, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, and Harris announced that the Commanders’ new stadium would be built in Washington.
In July, Trump said that if Harris did not change the team’s name from the Commanders to its old name, the Redskins, he would stop construction of the stadium, which is considered offensive to some Native American groups. Former owner Dan Snyder removed the name from the team in 2020, and it was called the Washington Football Team for two years before Snyder dubbed the team the Commanders. Some fans have repeatedly called on the new ownership group to restore its original nickname.
On September 17, the DC Council voted 11–2 to approve the RFK Stadium project. Commanders will invest $2.7 billion to build a 65,000-seat stadium located on a 174-acre parcel 2 miles from the U.S. Capitol — and will pay for all cost overruns. The district, which will put up $1 billion, will lease the stadium to the team. The Commanders Stadium project will include housing development, a sports complex and retail shops — “the largest economic development project in DC history,” Bowser called it.
The Commanders currently play at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, a venue 9 miles from the RFK site that was the team’s home to three Super Bowl victories. The RFK Stadium site is a highly emotional site for Washington fans and members of the current Commanders ownership group.
Nearly all NFL teams have sold lucrative stadium naming rights to corporate sponsors for millions of dollars, as the Harris ownership group presumably wanted to do. A handful have nicknames and sponsors, such as Empower Field at Mile High. denver and GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium. kansas citysome fields, green BayLambeau Field and chicagoSoldier Field, no sponsor name.
Trump’s golf courses and hotels have long been named for him, and during his second term, the president and his supporters have pushed to name other structures for him. This summer, lawmakers renamed the Kennedy Center the Donald J. Introduced a bill to build a Trump Center for the Performing Arts.
The source with knowledge of the stadium deal said that if Trump insists on a stadium bearing his name, “he has a good chance” of doing so, no matter which government body ultimately makes the decision.
“He has cards to play. He can make it very difficult through government environmental clearance and other things to ensure that whoever wants to build this stadium can put their name on it,” the source said. “Trump has a lot of cards to play to get his way.”
A source with knowledge of Trump’s wishes said the president does not want to buy the name or any deep-pocketed corporate sponsor does not want to buy the name for him. Sources said he wanted Commanders Stadium to be named after him, like Lambeau Field, as a tribute or as a thank you for his work in getting it approved.
