FedEx Field is no more, as the Commanders announced Wednesday that FedEx will end its naming rights agreement with the stadium, pulling out of their deal two years before it was set to expire in 2026.
And the reaction to that, from Brian Mitchell and JP Finlay at least, was…okay?
“I would think that Josh and his crew are working on something already,” BMitch said. “When they bought this team, they knew that little nugget was out there. Anybody at the level of business these people are, they know these things – and with the news yesterday they’re putting $75 million into the stadium, they have to have something in the works, because they knew something was coming down. I don’t think they were caught by surprise.”
“If you’re FedEx, this contract was written pretty tight unless there was a qualifying event, which was the sale of the team,” JP said. “Maybe they knew it was out there, but that doesn’t mean they expected it to happen. I think they’ll be able to re-sell it, but MCI/Verizon/Capital One Arena has roughly the same timeline as FedEx Field, so think about that.”
One of those transitions was a corporate merger, similar to Philly’s arena where Josh Harris’ Sixers play going from First Union to Wachovia to Wells Fargo,
“The picture of stability in the NFL, I think of the Steelers. What’s the name of their stadium?” JP asked, with the guys noting that people still call Acrisure Stadium by its old name of Heinz Field – especially BMitch, who had no idea there was even a change.
“When something stinks, people say so long,” BMitch said, “and it isn’t the stadium that sell the Steelers, the Steelers sell the stadium.
When we get to the point where the team sells the product, we can talk about what’s out there.”
Take a listen to their entire discussion on the FedEx relationship ending above!