The Washington Commanders are headed back to D.C.
For almost 30 years, the team has played its home games in Landover, Maryland at Northwest Field (formerly known as FedEx Field). On Monday, the Commanders announced plans to build a new stadium in the District of Columbia with a video narrated by former quarterback Joe Theismann and posted to social media.
According to the video, the team’s plan is to build the stadium on the site of RFK Memorial Stadium, where the team played from 1961 to 1996. The site is located two miles directly east of the U.S. Capitol building.
‘Let’s bring the Commanders home,’ Theismann says in the video. ‘Let’s bring Washington back to D.C.’
Harris and D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser will share more details for the stadium plans at a news conference Monday morning.
The opportunity to build a new stadium on the RFK Stadium site only became a reality earlier this year.
In early January, former President Joe Biden signed a bill transferring ownership of the land from the federal government to the city of D.C. for the next 99 years. It was a measure that both team principal owner Josh Harris and NFL commissioner Roger Goodell had lobbied for before it was signed.
Multiple city council members, including chairman Phil Mendelson, have already voiced their dissent, saying they oppose the use of taxpayer money to build a new stadium.
‘My position has been that there should not be public dollars – the D.C. treasury should not be paying toward a stadium,’ he told the Washington Post earlier this month.
The team’s ownership group, led by Harris, has long said one of its biggest goals in acquiring the team was to build a new stadium by 2030. The Commanders have a contract with the state of Maryland to play at their current stadium in Landover until 2027 and can continue to play there until the new stadium’s construction is finished.
Washington finished the 2024 season with a 12-5 record, its best mark since 1991. Rookie quarterback Jayden Daniels helped lead the team to the NFC championship game before the Commanders were defeated by the eventual Super Bowl-champion Philadelphia Eagles.
