The Washington Redskins name and iconic logo that the NFL team in the nation’s capital abandoned in 2020 is back in a manner of speaking. It’s on full display and for sale in the team’s current merchandise shop.
Although the gear bearing the Redskins name is rare and limited to a Mitchell & Ness throwback line of T-shirts or jerseys bearing the name of former players who played with the Redskins name and helmet insignia, it is indeed for sale.
Anyone can go to the brick-and-mortar store at Northwest Stadium or online and buy, for example, an Art Monk T-shirt bearing the Pro Football Hall Fame receiver’s likeness in his old uniform and in his Redskins helmet.
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The back of that T-shirt is emblazoned with “Washington Redskins” and Monk’s career statistics and records. The shirt costs $49.99.
For the same price, fans can purchase a Sean Taylor T-Shirt with the likeness of the former safety in his Redskins uniform before he was tragically slain in 2007. Like Monk, Taylor played for the Redskins, not the Washington Commanders.
Taylor’s retired No. 21 jersey, complete with the Redskins name on the front and a 75th anniversary Washington Redskins patch, is available for $114.99.
The interesting thing about this is the franchise is marketing this gear emblazoned with Washington Redskins script and logos as Commanders gear.
The jersey, for example, is described as a Sean Taylor Black Washington Commanders Retired Player Name & Number Mesh Top – even though the Commanders nickname does not appear on the jersey.
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This is what happens when an NFL franchise builds a long and storied history as the Washington Redskins from 1937 to 2019, then decides the Redskins nickname is racist or otherwise offensive under pressure from liberal fans, some Native American groups and sponsors.
The Washington Commanders, as they’re known now, have vowed never to return to the Redskins nickname.
Current owner Josh Harris said in September 2023 that he understands the nostalgia for the former name but that “there was a portion of our fan base that felt disrespected by the former name.”
So why, if the Redskins name is bothersome, are the Commanders selling Redskins merchandise? And why are they later this season wearing an alternate helmet with a spear piercing the W insignia, much like the old feathered arrow helmet the Redskins wore in the 1960s?
The spear that is part of the so-called “Raise Hail” alternate uniform is an obvious reach at Redskins nostalgia.
The gear in the team gift shop is being made available to keep the old trademark in commercial use, according to WUSA9 in Washington.
“We are required to maintain the marks in commercial usage so that marks remain under franchise control,” a club spokesman told the television station.
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A trademark may be deemed abandoned if its use is discontinued with intent not resume use. The Lanham Act says that three consecutive years of nonuse is prima facie evidence of abandonment.
The statutory standard also requires “bona fide use … in the ordinary course of trade,” rather than merely token sales made solely to reserve rights.
That might be a problem for the Commanders because their contention is that these Redskins items are sold on a limited availability.
It should be noted that there are Native American groups who believe the Redskins nickname to be indeed racist. But other native individuals, including a Navajo Code Talkers Association leader and a former Blackfeet tribal chairman, have publicly supported retaining the old nickname and the Native-profile logo.
Walter “Blackie” Wetzel, a former chairman of the Blackfeet Tribe and former president of the National Congress of American Indians, helped persuade the club in 1972 to replace its “R” helmet logo with the Native chief helmet portrait most associated with the team.
In a 2002 interview, Wetzel said: “It made us all so proud to have an Indian on a big-time team. It’s only a small group of radicals who oppose those names. Indians are proud of Indians.”
