Sunday, August 23, 2020

Identity Crisis: Sports Edition


https://www.nfl.com/news/washington-football-team-nfl-name-change


https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/us-sport/national-football-league/washington-redskins-new-name-change-football-team-2020-nfl-latest-a9635001.html


As released on the franchise twitter machine, and the NFL, the team formally known as the Redskins will take a page from the soccer playbook and rebrand themselves as the Washington Football Team. 

As reported by the Independent, this move will at least be for the 2020/2021 season, and perhaps longer, but as the NFL story seems to say, it won't be a permanent solution. The colors will stay the same, the mascot will "retire", and the helmet logo is to be replaced by players individual numbers, which is something that teams have done in the past, and some colleges still do. 

So... finally the worst offender of racial mascots in post modern history has come to an end. And, in contrast to what detractors have been saying for decades, the team identity doesn't seem to be hurt at all by this. They will still be (literally) their city's team. In fact, due to the name change, presumably the team will be allowed to actually relocate back into the city limits. 

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