FedEx CEO puts squeeze on Skins
Will the Washington “Redskins” become a relic of the past? One of their minority investors, the CEO of the company that owns the naming rights to their stadium, hopes so.
FedEx on Thursday became the first major corporate supporter of the Redskins to call on the team to change its name. It was a major mark during the decades-long controversy about the name as majority owner Daniel Snyder continues to face economic and political pressure.
FedEx, based in Memphis, Tennessee, said in a statement: “We have communicated to the team in Washington our request that they change the team name.”
FedEx is a Fortune 100 company that has been associated with the Redskins for more than 20 years. The statement came less than a week after a group of 88 investment firms and shareholders representing $620 billion in assets called on FedEx, Nike and Pepsi to cut ties with the team unless Snyder alters its name.
During an era when many Americans are giving new scrutiny to long-established symbols — such as Confederate monuments — that bring pain to some people, especially minorities, FedEx’s statement was a new salvo.
If major sponsors eventually abandon the team, Snyder’s finances would be damaged while he tries to secure a new stadium. It’s already been difficult because Washington has struggled on the field in recent seasons.
FedEx, 47th on the 2020
Fortune 500 list, holds the naming rights to the current stadium in Landover, Maryland, through 2026 under a $205 million, 27-year deal signed in November 1999. FedEx CEO Frederick W. Smith is a minority investor in the team and, according to The Washington Post, is believed to have a 10% share.
Carla Fredericks, director of First Peoples Worldwide and director of the University of Colorado Law School’s American Indian Law Clinic, told The Post that the shareholders see the name as a racial slur, and they feel as if Nike, FedEx and Pepsi have obligations for inclusion and diversity. Thus, they believe the value of their investments will suffer if the companies continue supporting an NFL team that doesn’t reflect the values.
Snyder has owned the Redskins since 1999 and said in 2013 that he will never change a name that he insists honors Native Americans.
To Fredericks, it’s widely accepted that “Redskins” is a racial slur that originally referred to the bounty on the scalps of Native Americans. Whether most Native Americans agree, she said, doesn’t matter.
“That’s irrelevant to the investors’ push in the context of the larger social movement on racial justice,” she told The Post.
In an interview with AdWeek, Fredericks said, “This is a broader movement now that’s happening that Indigenous peoples are part of. Indigenous peoples were sort of left out of the civil rights movement in the late 1960s in many respects because our conditions were so dire on reservations and our ability to engage publicly was very limited because of that. With social media now, obviously everything is very different.”
On Twitter, Jordan Asri of @redskinstoday reported that Nike removed all Redskins clothing from its website, though the other 31 NFL teams still have merchandise there.
Asked about Snyder changing the name, a spokesman said recently the team had no comment. The team last week removed the name of racist founder George Preston Marshall from its Ring of Fame at FedEx Field, and a monument to him was removed from the site of the old RFK Stadium.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said the name was an “obstacle” to the team returning to her city. On Wednesday, several politicians said Snyder has no hope of building the franchise’s next stadium on the federally owned RFK campus if the team remains the Redskins. The team, including its three Super Bowl champions, played at RFK Stadium until going to Landover.