Time for name change
It may not be the most pressing issue in the city to the south that’s also called Washington, what with Iraq, Ukraine, immigration and health care, but a decision Wednesday by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to deny trademark registration to the Washington Redskins because their name is a racial slur against American Indians should be sufficient for the team’s owner to surrender and change it.
It probably won’t happen. Daniel Snyder, the billionaire who signs the checks for the Redskins, is stubbornly committed to retaining the Redskins moniker, even as the clamor for it to be dropped is growing. And the Redskins will not lose trademark protection immediately; they can keep it through the appeals process, which is likely to drag on for a long, long time. And even if they fail there, they would still be allowed to assert their rights to the moniker under common law. Redskins merchandise will not disappear tomorrow.
But why should the team engage in such a fight? The name “redskin” is clearly a denigrating term to a sizeable contingent of Americans, and having this controversy hanging over the team would, theoretically, be bad for business. In 2007, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays baseball team changed its name to the simpler Tampa Bay Rays to no ill-effect. In fact, the year after it happened, the team went to the World Series.
Considering the Redskins haven’t gone to the Super Bowl in over 20 years, Snyder might want to take note of that.