Thousands of people got their wish on Monday when it was announced that Washington would retire their controversial team name. After the battle waged on for years, a change was finally made, and while the new name has not yet been announced, it is coming eventually.
Now that the name is officially changing, and team owner Dan Snyder recanted his statement from 2013 that he would ‘NEVER’ change the name, does he get any credit in your mind? Do you think he did the right thing?
For ESPN’s Marcus Spears, the answer is an emphatic ‘No.’
“This is simple, it’s financial pressure,” Spears said on ESPN’s Get Up. “This is not a new conversation, either, I want people to understand that. I understand what’s going on in the country with unrest and social justice issues and all of the things that are transpiring outside publicly. And obviously it would be a bad look for the Washington Redskins to be tone deaf to actually what’s happening in the United States of America. But, with that being said, it’s two names that got this changed: FedEx and Nike.”
That point is impossible to disprove. None of this would have happened unless it was made a financial decision for Snyder, and when two of his biggest sponsors threatened to drop him as a partner, and Washington merchandise was removed from online stores across the country, there was no other decision to be made; the name simply had to change.
“I’m not standing on a podium about to have a celebration for Dan Snyder for being conscious about social justice issues, because he is not changing the name because of that,” Spears concluded. “He’s changing the name because of financial pressure from these companies that are talking about pulling out if they didn’t make a change.”
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