FedEx, which has naming rights for the stadium where the Washington Redskins play, requested Thursday that the team change its nickname.
“We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that the team be renamed,” FedEx said in a statement obtained by ESPN.
The naming rights, for which FedEx paid $ 205 million in 1998, extend until 2025. And FedEx President Frederick Smith is a minority owner of the team.
Team owner Dan Snyder has been under renewed pressure to change his nickname, and protesters are reportedly targeting their sponsors, according to Adweek.
FedEx, Nike and PepsiCo received letters signed by 87 investment firms and shareholders for a combined value of $ 620 billion asking companies to cut ties with the team unless they change their controversial name, Adweek reported Wednesday.
In 2014, The Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin asked FedEx shareholders to reconsider the naming rights agreement, but shareholders voted to continue with company officials and continue the business relationship, according to the Memphis Business Journal.
Snyder has come under more pressure in recent weeks to change the name given the social climate after George Floyd’s death in Minnesota.
Native American leaders want Snyder to change the name, which the franchise has used since 1933. In the past, groups protested the name and tried to win in court. Those efforts failed.
The Washington Post reported that Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s non-voting delegate to the House of Representatives, made it clear that the nickname should be changed if the team wanted to return to the district.
That position serves as a potential hurdle if the franchise wants to return to the district when its land lease at FedEx Field in Landover, Maryland, ends after the 2027 season. Washington is looking for sites in the district, Maryland, and Virginia.
District officials made it clear they would like the franchise to return to the city, where it played until it left RFK Stadium after the 1996 season. The federal government owns the land, but Norton last year submitted a project. of law calling for it to be sold to the city at fair market value.
ESPN’s John Keim contributed to this report.
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