DIGEST FedEx asks Washington’s NFL team to change name

The title sponsor of the Washington Redskins’ stadium wants the NFL team to change its nickname.

“We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name,” FedEx said in a statement Thursday. The company paid the team $205 million in 1999 for the naming rights to FedEx Field in Landover, Md.

FedEx CEO Frederik Smith is also a minority owner of the team. Majority owner Daniel

Snyder has shown no indications he’ll change the name since buying it in 1999.

Amid the national debate over race, pressure has been mounting on the organization to abandon the name called a “dictionarydefined racial slur” by experts and advocates.

Investors this week wrote to FedEx, PepsiCo and other sponsors asking them to request a change. FedEx is believed to be the first to take action.

The PGA of America is renaming its Horton Smith Award, which honors a PGA member for outstanding contributions to professional education, after a review of history revealed Smith defended the Caucasianonly membership clause when he served as PGA president in the early 1950s.

Texas junior linebacker DeMarvion Overshown said he will sit out from all team activities until the school starts meeting demands for campus changes sought by dozens of Longhorns athletes.

The demands made in early June include renaming several campus buildings currently named after former Texas officials with ties to the Confederacy and segregation, and a call to drop the school song “The Eyes of Texas.”