Washington Commanders, every mention

The NFL: How small-town teams became America's most valuable sports empire (Audio) · Acquired Jan 27, 2026 · 17 mentions

• ▶ 23:24 David Rosenthal Unfortunately, in the mid-thirties, supposedly after George Preston Marshall comes into the league as owner of the Boston Braves that became the Boston Redskins and then moved to Washington, D.C., at his behest, they adopt
• ▶ 23:41 David Rosenthal The same policy as Major League Baseball and completely kick Blacks out of the league, and it wouldn't be until after World War II, and for the Redskins, not until 1961.
• ▶ 23:51 Ben Gilbert The Redskins commensurate with keeping that name for as long as they did.
• ▶ 23:54 Ben Gilbert They were very, very, very late to integrate the team.
• ▶ 23:58 Ben Gilbert I think they had some really big fan base in the South, and there weren't a lot of NFL teams at that point in the South, and so it was both
• ▶ 26:52 Ben Gilbert Right, and those eight teams, the Cardinals, of course, they're in Arizona today, you got the Chicago Bears, you got the Green Bay Packers, the New York Giants, the Detroit Lions, the Boston Redskins had since moved to Washington, you've…
• ▶ 33:16 unnamed speaker The NFL, and especially the Redskins, didn't have a lot of interest in doing so, but moving the Rams to LA forces the league to integrate because the LA Coliseum, where the Rams want to play, is a publicly owned building, and it's…
• ▶ 2:23:51 Ben Gilbert Nixon really, really, really likes watching the Redskins, but he's sick of taking the helicopter to Camp David to watch their away games, which he actually was doing, which is unbelievable.
• ▶ 2:24:03 David Rosenthal Nixon literally phoned in a play for a Redskins playoff game from the White House.
• ▶ 3:58:14 David Rosenthal So all of this worked great until the summer of twenty-twenty-three, when the Washington Commanders, formerly until recently at that point known as the Washington Redskins, stumbled into a distressed situation.
• ▶ 3:59:22 David Rosenthal This ultimately ends up in 20, 21, two, three, in a U.S. congressional investigation into the Redskins slash commanders and Dan Snyder's ownership of them, and at the end of 22, as these investigations are ongoing, the rest of the owners…
• ▶ 4:00:13 David Rosenthal Well, the good news, bad news for the NFL is that because they've been so successful and the Washington football team is a great franchise, great stadium rates, et cetera.
• ▶ 4:00:41 David Rosenthal All those strict ownership rules that they have, they now need to come up with a new principal owner candidate who has enough liquid cash to cover an emergency purchase of 30%, at least of the Washington football team.
• ▶ 4:01:22 David Rosenthal The commanders ultimately sell for just north of six billion dollars.
• ▶ 4:02:12 David Rosenthal The Washington football franchise along with 20 other limited partners.
• ▶ 4:02:44 David Rosenthal What's going to happen to the commanders?
• ▶ 4:08:49 David Rosenthal Commanders transaction that precipitated all of this, but a large number of teams have used this as a way either with private equity or interestingly, more often without private equity, usually with family offices to sell minority stakes…