Jan. 4 (UPI) — The Washington Football Team will announce its new name and unveil a new logo on Feb. 2, team president Jason Wright said Tuesday in a news release.
The team also announced that it will reveal the new nickname on NBC’s Today show.
The NFC East franchise announced in July 2020 that it would change its name to the Washington Football Team, retiring its former controversial nickname and Native American branding. The team announced that same month that it would call itself the Washington Football Team until it found a new nickname.
In September, CEO Tanya Snyder announced the final eight names in consideration: Red Hogs, Defenders, Armada, Presidents, Brigade, Commanders, RedWolves and Washington Football Team.
The team announced in August that the search was down to three finalists, but did not say which names made the final cut.
Wright said that RedWolves or Wolves will not be picked due to trademark issues and that the team “didn’t want to risk going down a route that could be dotted with legal hurdles.”
“Early on we understood Wolves — or some variation of it — was one of our fan favorites,” Wright said. “As I’ve said all along, we take feedback from our fans seriously, and because of your interest in this name, we put Wolves on a list of options to explore fully.
“Once we began looking into Wolves, however, we became aware of a notable challenge: trademarks held by other teams would limit our ability to make the name our own. And without Wolves, variations like RedWolves wouldn’t have been viable either for these and other reasons.”
Washington received more than 40,000 submissions from fans with ideas about what the new name should be through WashingtonJourney.com. The team plans to keep its burgundy and gold colors.
Washington is 6-10 this season and sits in third place in the NFC East. The team won the division last season for the first time since 2015.
Washington wraps up its 2021-22 regular-season campaign against the New York Giants at 1 p.m. EST Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J.
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