Name Change for 2020 is Unlikely
July 9, 2020
by Steve Thomas
When the Washington Redskins announced last week that the team was going to undergo an unspecified “review” of the use of the 83 year old “Redskins” nickname in light of economic pressure from Federal Express, Nike, and Pepsi, it was reasonable to assume that the “Redskins” moniker was unfortunately dead at that point. The idea that the Redskins would emerge from whatever review process they undertake and merely conclude that everything’s fine seems unlikely at best. I strongly disagree with a decision to change the name and wrote about it last week, but assuming for the sake of the argument that it’s going to happen, I wanted to take some time to talk about the current leading contenders as well as process the team will have to undergo to make it happen.
Possible names
Oddshark.com has published odds for the new name[1], with the leading contenders as of July 7 being Redtails at +300, Generals at +400, Presidents at +500, Lincolns at +600, and Veterans at +800. Other names that seem to be popular with the fanbase are also on Oddshark’s board: Capitols (+900), Monuments (+1000), Redhawks (+1500), Renegades (+2200), and Hogs (+5000). Oddshark hasn’t listed odds for either “Warriors” or “Redwolves” at all, which seems strange given the interest in those two possibilities amongst the fanbase.
One thing that’s important to note is that most of these names are already trademarked by others. The Hog Sty recently spoke to Mr. Martin McCaulay, who owns several of these marks, including “Washington Americans”, “Washington Veterans”, “Washington Renegades”, “Washington Redtail Hawks” (which will give him an argument about the usage of “Washington Redtails”), and several more, and he also is in line for a claim on “Washington Warriors” (another party is first in line). Mr. McCaulay views his acquisition of these marks as more of a hobby than an investment. He claims to have sent the Redskins’ intellectual property attorneys a letter purportedly offering to transfer the rights to any name his owns, but received no response from the team. I suspect that the Redskins would be able to strike a deal with him if they tried to do so.
McCaulay is, of course, just one of several people who hold trademarks to possible new names, with even more having various subordinate claims against some of these names. Most of those people are probably just squatting on the name, hoping that the Redskins are going to come calling, and could have radically different goals than those of McCaulay. The Redskins could choose to go “scorched earth” and fight for the marks in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) rather than just agreeing to pay the current owners up front and be done with it. The idea of the team choosing the “scorched earth” route should surprise no one.
“Washington Redwolves” is the only name possibility being thrown around that isn’t already trademarked, although various forms of “Red Wolf”, “Redwolf”, “Redwolves”, and “Red Wolves” are all held by various other non-NFL related companies.
Regarding the “Warriors” possibility, McCaulay believes that the NBA’s Golden St. Warriors franchise could end up being a problem for Washington as a result of the scope of their existing trademarks, so that’s something to keep an eye on as the process goes along. I could not independently verify that Golden St.’s various trademark rights are that broad.
The point is, the trademark issues are most likely not going to be a completely clean and easy process.
The Process
As evidenced above, going from approved nickname to actually playing NFL football under that name is not as easy to accomplish as one might think.
As I alluded to above, once the team selects a new nickname, the first and most important thing that needs to happen is to trademark the name. In the United States, the USPTO manages all trademarks. It’s fairly easy to make a simple initial trademark application, but it’s not an instantaneous process. After filing, it normally takes the USPTO 3 or 4 months even in the best circumstances before it can do its initial evaluation of the application. Then, federal law requires a 30 day public comment period, and that period can be extended. It’s at this point that people such as Mr. McCaulay and others who believe that they hold some sort of claim to the proposed trademark can file objections with the USPTO. If all goes well and the USPTO receives no objections, the trademark will get finalized a number of months later; however, if objections are received, the objections will need to be evaluated and resolved. In the worst-case scenario, the process could drag out in litigation for years. The average time from cradle to grave, assuming no serious problems (especially litigation), is about a year.
The team will need to make a number of different name-related filings, but they all can be done simultaneously. Top intellectual property law firms may be able to accelerate the time for the government’s evaluation process to some degree, but I don’t think they can realistically get it down to just a few weeks, and the process does require the public comment period no matter what. For the sake of perspective, the 2020 season is supposed to start 8 weeks from now.
The team will also need new logos, and those will need to be designed and trademarked in their own right. Professional logo design takes time; they aren’t normally created in a day. So, add design time to the standard trademark processing time, and that increases the time up to perhaps significantly more than a year, although the team could obviously have their graphic designers already working on multiple possibilities prior to a name being chosen in order to save time.
Next, merchandise manufacturers such as Nike and others will need to design their new products and ramp up manufacturing. This isn’t The Hog Sty designing and ordering a few of Alex Zeese’s t-shirts – it’s a major national operation and that’s not done in a day, either.
The team will also have to re-design its website. That in and of itself isn’t a big deal, since all NFL team websites follow the same template and the team already has an existing website, but Washington will have to acquire the rights to the new website name, and if you think people aren’t already squatting on most potential new site names, you haven’t been paying attention.
The Hog Sty provided the Redskins an opportunity to comment on these issues and the team indicated that it would not be making any external comments until after the nickname review process was completed.
All of this is to say that the idea that the Redskins could actually have a new name set up and ready to go for the 2020 season is far-fetched at best unless they’ve already been working on it without anyone being made aware. The Redskins can’t just snap their fingers and easily have a new nickname all set up in time for week 1. The more likely scenario is that they can probably get everything ready in time for 2021, so be ready for one last “Redskins” goodbye fling before it flies off into the sunset.
[1] https://www.oddsshark.com/nfl/washington-next-team-name-odds. For the uninitiated, these odds mean that a bettor will win a profit in the stated amount if they bet $100. For example, if one bets $100 on “Redtails”, and that ends up being the nickname, that person will win a profit of $300. In other words, Oddshark is offering “Redtails” at 3 to 1 odds.