Jonathan Kemp walked to the door after he completed lunch Wednesday afternoon at Jasper’s Restaurant in Largo, about two miles from FedEx Subject, a white plastic bag of leftovers in hand. Kemp, 49, just lately moved to Largo after rising up in Southeast Washington, the place he developed his love for the Washington Commanders, whom he nonetheless refers to, out of each behavior and defiance, by their former nickname.
Maryland
If the Commanders build in Virginia, will their Maryland fans follow?
If the Commanders go away his new environs for Virginia, which grew right into a vivid chance this week, Kemp couldn’t cease rooting for his beloved NFL crew. He simply would cease attending their video games, and he suspects most of his mates would, too.
“To say I’m going to take all my guys to Loudoun County, Woodbridge, you’re going to get a unique base,” Kemp mentioned. “Perhaps that’s the bottom that you really want. However you’re not going to get your extra loyal followers.”
Monday’s revelation that the Commanders had acquired the rights to purchase 200 acres in Woodbridge, Va., raised questions on how a possible transfer to that website — or another in Virginia, together with an possibility close to Dulles — might alter the make-up and fervency of a fan base that has eroded total through the 23-year stewardship of proprietor Daniel Snyder.
As soon as thought-about to be the uncommon civic establishment able to uniting not solely Washington, but in addition most of Maryland and Virginia, the Commanders might change into the only real geographic property of Virginia, making some surprise if they might cede the remaining vestiges of their Maryland fan base to the Baltimore Ravens.
A number of the crew’s most die-hard holdouts stay in Prince George’s County, the jurisdiction that has housed the franchise’s residence video games since FedEx Subject opened 24 years in the past in Landover. Constructing a brand new stadium in Virginia not solely would imply residence video games would negotiating the area’s usually oppressive visitors. It additionally would imply shifting the potential financial good points away from a majority-Black area to a predominantly white suburb.
“I don’t suppose that will be misplaced on anybody,” Prince George’s County Council member Mel Franklin mentioned.
Many hurdles and negotiations stay earlier than any stadium deal turns into ultimate. The crew is also negotiating an option-to-purchase settlement at a deliberate growth of retailers and workplaces in Loudoun County. Two key Virginia senators forged doubts on stadium laws, with Sen. Chap Petersen (D-Fairfax Metropolis) saying he had misplaced “confidence within the Washington Commanders as a viable NFL franchise.” Franklin mentioned the Commanders are “primarily fostering a contest between jurisdictions” and that “I don’t suppose Prince George’s County goes to again down.”
Franklin mentioned staying in Prince George’s County can be the Commanders’ most suitable choice, as a result of the crew already owns the land for a stadium and the county would work with them to rework it in a mutually useful means.
Because the Ravens’ aggressive success helped them develop extra common in Anne Arundel and Howard counties, having a stadium in Prince George’s County gave the Commanders “a powerful type of firewall” inside in its Maryland fan base, Franklin mentioned. Maybe die-hard Prince George’s County followers would stick to them, Franklin mentioned, however informal followers possible would drift towards the Ravens.
“This transfer would make Maryland actually only a Ravens state,” mentioned Franklin, a council member since 2010. “Proper now, Maryland is a two-football-team state. You could have a powerful buyer base for the Ravens and a powerful buyer base for the Commanders. If the Commanders transfer that far down in Virginia, it makes Maryland a Ravens state. And I don’t suppose that’s good for the Commanders fan base, and I don’t suppose it’s good for the Commanders’ marketing strategy.”
Reese Waters, who now hosts reveals on The Workforce 980 and WUSA-9, grew up in Prince George’s County. When he first learn Monday’s information, he felt shock and a protecting intuition. As he thought extra about it, Waters skilled a unique response, born of resignation.
“That truly looks like probably the most acceptable residence for them to have,” he mentioned. “It’s very reflective of how far eliminated they’re from the hearts and minds of their old-school followers.”
George Wake, a now-retired trainer and coach at Fairmont Heights Excessive, remembers when gamedays meant a sea of burgundy and gold paraphernalia. Now, when he goes procuring close to his Bowie residence, he sees extra Ravens purple and gold. He can envision a Commanders transfer extending the shift.
“It’s a definite chance that folks out the place I stay in Bowie and up in Crofton, locations like that, will in all probability go to the Ravens’ stadium,” Wake mentioned. “It’s simpler to get to the Ravens’ stadium, and so they’re successful, and to me, the stadium is healthier than Washington’s stadium. If someone mentioned, ‘Let’s go to Woodbridge,’ or ‘let’s go to Baltimore,’ I might see myself saying, ‘I’d relatively go to Baltimore.’ ”
Outdoors of recreation day attendance, geography has by no means been much less linked to fandom. Followers can stream, watch or obtain fixed updates about any crew they please. Youthful generations drift extra towards gamers than groups.
Across the NFL, Ravens President Sashi Brown mentioned in an interview, franchises are enterprise an initiative to reply a once-obvious query: The place are our followers? The Ravens, possible owing to their historical past of success and the dazzling fashion of quarterback Lamar Jackson, have discovered shocking solutions. Inside information reveals their second-highest variety of digital engagements come from Mexico Metropolis.
“We definitely wish to really feel 70,000 sturdy at M&T Financial institution Stadium each Sunday that we’re enjoying there and have sellouts,” Brown mentioned. “However we additionally notice a giant a part of what we do, as a part of our branding and our advertising and marketing and activations with our fan base occurs outdoors the video games that we play downtown.
“If Washington strikes, it will change the panorama considerably, however probably not.”
In Virginia, some native officers view the deterioration of the Commanders’ fan base as an argument for the franchise to maneuver into their state.
“I feel you’ve seen the Ravens eat into the fan base over time and the massive bulk of the fan base is in Virginia now, so I can perceive why the Commanders would wish to take a look at Virginia,” mentioned Virginia state Sen. Jeremy S. McPike (D-Prince William).
To make up for followers who’ve gravitated towards the Ravens, the Commanders have been courting Virginians, most notably by shifting its coaching camp to Richmond in 2013, a deal that expired final yr, mentioned Virginia state Sen. Scott A. Surovell (D-Fairfax), whose district contains each potential stadium websites.
“There’s extra potential followers in Hampton Roads and Richmond than there are west of Dulles,” he mentioned.
Surovell, who helps increasing mass transit to serve Prince William, additionally predicted that followers from Maryland and D.C. would make the journey to see the Commanders within the Commonwealth, simply as Virginians routinely cross the Potomac for points of interest on the opposite aspect.
“Virginia’s been serving to to pay for Maryland faculties through their casinos and the soccer crew for many years,” he mentioned.
When Donnell Lengthy noticed the Commanders had bought land in Woodbridge, he thought to himself, “It doesn’t seem like we’re going to have the ability to preserve them. In the event that they put that a lot of an funding in some land, the countdown is on.”
Lengthy is the chef/proprietor of Olde Towne Inn, an area establishment that sits subsequent to the Prince George’s County Courtroom Home. He mentioned enterprise surges on fall Sundays when Washington wins and sags when it loses. He believes Prince George’s County residents “overwhelmingly” need the stadium to stay the place it’s. “They’ve a singular stranglehold on the neighborhood,” Lengthy mentioned.
Near the Capital Beltway and remoted by a desert of parking tons, FedEx Subject attracts little financial stimulus to close by companies. However Lengthy worries for the stadium staff — concession servers, safety personnel, and many others. — who would lose secondary incomes they depend on.
“It’ll be an enormous loss for the neighborhood,” Lengthy mentioned. “Not simply from a enterprise standpoint. Simply from the pure pleasure. It provides folks an opportunity to come back to Prince George’s County, see Prince George’s County, dine in Prince George’s County. I feel it’s a serious loss. It’s not going to haven’t dire repercussions, however it’s going to have an enormous impact.”
Franklin mentioned an NFL stadium in a majority-Black space, particularly in an period when some skilled sports activities franchises have relocated to suburban neighborhoods, “sends an excellent message for fairness and inclusion.” Kemp mentioned it will really feel just like the Commanders are turning their backs on Prince George’s County if the stadium landed in Virginia.
“On this metropolis, which used to name itself Chocolate Metropolis as soon as upon a time, that’s skilled the diploma of gentrification and folks displacement that we now have, it’s much more significantly painful,” Waters mentioned. “On the similar time, what in Dan Snyder’s stewardship of this group says he can be in any respect delicate to that, or that he would react or reply to that in any means?”
Laura Vozzella contributed to this report.