Did Washington Football Team Leak Its New Team Name?
Is the Washington Football Team about to become the Washington Admirals? The sleuths are on the hunt and one of those sleuths, JP Finlay from NBC Washington and 106.7 The Fan, thinks he's busted the case wide open by typing in WashingtonAdmirals.com and finding out that it redirected to WashingtonFootball.com.
WashingtonAdmirals.com now redirects to a site raising money for food service workers.
For those keeping track at home, WashingtonFootball.com is the current homepage for the former Redskins franchise that was converted into the Washington Football Team.
"This could just be somebody with a redirect URL. Gonna be a fun month of speculation," Finlay tweeted this week.
Dan Snyder's big name reveal is supposed to happen February 2. Tuesday, the franchise announced that two possible names have been cut from consideration.
"Early on we understood Wolves -- or some variation of it -- was one of our fan favorites," team president Jason Wright said in a statement on the team site. "As I've said all along, we take feedback from our fans seriously, and because of your interest in this name, we put Wolves on a list of options to explore fully. Once we began looking into Wolves, however, we became aware of a notable challenge: trademarks held by other teams would limit our ability to make the name our own. And without Wolves, variations like RedWolves wouldn't have been viable either for these and other reasons.
"Understanding the weight and importance of our team name, and excitement around other name options -- both internally and within our fan base -- we didn't want to risk going down a route that could be dotted with legal hurdles. The prospect of years of litigation wasn't something that we wanted you, our fans, to have to bear as you begin to embrace a new brand."
So you can delete Wolves or Red Wolves from the list of possible names. In September, Washington CEO Tanya Snyder revealed on Adam Schefter's podcast that there were eight possible names in the running. With Tuesday's announcement, that would leave six standing, if the team was being upfront about the names in the running.
Those names left include Armada, Presidents, Brigade, Defenders, Redhogs, and Commanders.
Or is it Admirals and the team has fooled everyone but JP Finlay?