The first home game the Commanders play in the Dan Quinn era will NOT be at FedEx Field, because the large building in Landover no longer delivers that name.
A team spokesperson announced in an email to media Wednesday that FedEx will end its naming rights agreement with the stadium, pulling out of what was a $205 million deal begun in 1999 two years before it was set to expire in 2026.
The sale of the team to Josh Harris triggered a clause in the agreement that allowed FedEx to terminate early, which they exercised at the end of the 2023 season, and while FedEx will continue its long-standing sponsorships elsewhere with the team and the NFL, the Commanders have already begun looking for a new naming rights sponsor.
“We thank FedEx Corporation for its longstanding naming rights sponsorship and their work with our team and community and look forward to their continued partnership within the Commanders family,” the team said in a release to the media. “We have already started the process of identifying our next stadium naming rights partner — a partner who will play a crucial role in ushering in the next era of not only Commanders football, but also a robust slate of top live events and concerts.”
Per WaPo, the move will cost the Commanders roughly $15 million in revenue that FedEx would have paid on the remainder of the deal. It also ends what was, at the end, a tumultuous relationship between team and sponsor; FedEx founder Fred Smith was a minority owner in the Commanders franchise until 2021, when Dan Snyder bought out Smith and two others, and months before that, FedEx told the team they would remove themselves as a naming sponsor if they did not change the team name from Redskins.
The news also comes at an interesting time for the venue itself, as the team announced just Tuesday that they would be putting $75 million into improvements for the facility, as well as the future of Commanders football, as the U.S. House of Representatives is scheduled to vote Wednesday on a bill that could give DC control of the old RFK Stadium site, a very likely destination for a Commanders return to the District if they can regain control of the land.