The Washington Commanders are Washington Football Team's worst kept secret after yet another leak

Edward Sutelan

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The Washington Commanders are Washington Football Team's worst kept secret after yet another leak image

At long last, the new name of the Washington Football Team has been unveiled a day ahead of schedule. Brad Freitas, a helicopter reporter for Washington's NBC affiliate was flying over FedEx Field when the helicopter zoomed in on a promenade in the stadium donning the team's new name "Commanders" on what looked like a backdrop.

This is the second leak of the team's names in five days and it comes after operating as the Washington Football Team since 2020 after previously having a racist mascot and name as the team's brand.

A Twitter user spotted that the domain, Commanders.com, had been transferred to MarkMonitor, the company the NFL uses to handle most of its domain names for its teams and brands. This was confirmed by Whois internet record listing that Commanders.com is now handling the oversight of the domain.

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Currently MarkMonitor is the registrar for the NFL's official website and all but six of the NFL's teams. Washington Football Team uses GoDaddy, while the Cowboys, Patriots, Ravens, Raiders, Texans all use Network Solutions.

Large organizations like the NFL will use companies like MarkMonitor to secure the brand's website and provide security to the website. It works to combat cybersquatting and piracy, among other services.

The list of names had been brought down to just seven earlier in the year, and several are listed as having been updated in the past year or two and are owned by GoDaddy.

The domain for WFT is, of course, already handled by the team.

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It is common procedure for teams in the process of a name change to claim the domains and trademarks for potential name options. Cleveland's MLB team ran into an issue when it announced its name change from the Indians to the Guardians as it had not claimed the trademark or domain for the team before announcing the name change, and it found itself in a legal battle with a roller derby team in Cleveland already named Guardians Roller Derby. The lawsuit was settled in November, according to the Associated Press.

Two prominent names in the organization's history have recently shared their opinions on the name change. Longtime coach Joe Gibbs told 106.7 The Fan said that it will be "bittersweet" to see the name change go, but noted that he's still going to get behind the change.

"I think for our fans and all of us that love the Redskins — I feel like I'm the biggest Redskin fan in the world — whatever that name is, we are Washington football fans, we're gonna get behind it," Gibbs said.

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In another 106.7 The Fan interview, former Washington defensive end Charles Mann said that he agreed the name needed to be changed, and explained that if someone finds the name to be offensive, "who are we to say it's not?"

However, he also said he was told the three finalists for the name and explained that he was "not happy" with the options.

"I'm not happy with the name," Mann told 106.7 The Fan. "They gave us the three names probably three months ago on a Zoom call, and they asked us about all three of them. We crucified all three names."

Edward Sutelan

Edward Sutelan Photo

Edward Sutelan joined The Sporting News in 2021 after covering high school sports for PennLive. Edward graduated from The Ohio State University in 2019, where he gained experience covering the baseball, football and basketball teams. Edward also spent time working for The Columbus Dispatch and Cape Cod Times.