Just recently the headline sponsor of the popular Washington Redskins, FedEx, has recently called on the American football team to permanently change its own controversial name. The Washington DC-based team has repeatedly faced calls to change its own name, which is actually considered to be offensive for the Native Americans.
After pressure from their own investor, FedEx on Thursday spoke, in addition, its voice to the calls. According to their statement, they have already communicated to the whole team in Washington with regard to their request that they finally change the team name.
At the turn of this millennium, FedEx has already paid $205 million for the entire naming rights to the Redskin's own 82,000-seat stadium located in Maryland. The deal is said to expire later on 2025 which is not too far away.
But that is actually not the only tie the delivery giant has with the team. Both the boss and the founder of FedEx named Frederick Smith also owns an actual minority stake in the popular Redskins. The team has also come under large sustained pressure to actually change their name for a number of decades.
The Redskins face extreme pressure not just from FedEx but also their other partners
Just six years ago, the FedEx shareholders put in to vote if they would allow the Redskins to keep and use their name right after the massive shipping giant received a new complaint from the known Wisconsin-based Oneida Indian tribe.
But as the firm continues to assess its own stance on the issues regarding race, following the untimely death of George Floyd that happened in Minneapolis, FedEx has eventually called on the team to finally rebrand.
Last week, a total of 87 investment firms as well as shareholders wrote to FedEx, along with the Redskins' sponsors both Nike and PepsiCo, calling on the known firms to sever their ties with the popular Redskins, according to the information of AdWeek.
The previous letter that was written to PepsiCo stated that the Redskins' remains still a de-humanizing word that was characterizing people by their own skin color and also a racial slur that comes along with hateful connotations.
Nike stops showing Redskin merch
As of Thursday, the official Nike website suddenly did not display any single Redskins merchandise. Even the Washington-based time was the single out of the entire NFL teams that was no longer listed in the official site's index. Nike also did not immediately respond to an official request for comment.
Previously, the team's owner named Dan Snyder has stood his ground and remained steadfast with regards to keeping the name, calling it his own "badge of honor."
The team also did not immediately respond to an official request for comment.
