It’s a great time to be a Washington D.C. sports fan right now. On the one hand, you have the defending World Series Champion Nationals, the WNBA champion Mystics and a Capitals team that hoisted the Stanley Cup less than two years ago in 2018. The Wizards are far from championship level right now, but their fans can at least see Bradley Beal do work. D.C. United has to replace both Luciano Acosta and Wayne Rooney, but the club still has a strong fanbase, and has pledged to improve still-new Audi Field. And, there’s always the Redskins, who have finally made big, structural changes in their front office and coaching staff.
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(Don’t worry, college sports fans, your survey is coming.)
But are these long-suffering fan bases the same? Do the same people who cheer on the Caps care about the fate of FedEx Field? Which teams really matter? Which storylines are important to you, the fans? More than 2,000 of you took the time to fill out our “21 Questions” survey last week, with topics ranging from the worst owners, the Redskins’ name, the state of local media, and the most overrated and underrated athletes in the district.
Our group of insiders — Tarik El-Bashir, Britt Ghiroli, Fred Katz, Ben Standig — tallied the results, which were surprising in some spots, funny in others and, in at least one case, a little concerning. Below is Part 1 of a fascinating three-part temperature-taking of D.C. sports fandom. They’re grouped by subject, with the emphasis this week on the Nationals and Redskins…
D.C. loves a winner, so it should come as no surprise that the Capitals and Nationals blew away their closest Big Four competition, the Redskins and Wizards. The Caps have the area’s biggest star in Alex Ovechkin, have been to the playoffs in 11 of the past 12 years, and memories of hoisting the Stanley Cup remain fresh. A year after the Caps’ breakthrough, Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg and the Nats overcame years of postseason heartbreak and claimed the MLB championship. The big takeaway: new Redskins’ Coach Ron Rivera has a lot of work to do to win back what had been the area’s most loyal fan base. The big takeaway, Part 2: the Wizards rank closer to United and the Mystics than the other Big Four teams.
The Nationals edged out the shared home of the Caps and Wizards for the best place to watch a live game in town. Perhaps the summer baseball weather played a factor here, too. Nationals Park, with a seating capacity of more than 41,000, has helped revitalize a fast-growing Navy Yard. Home to MLB’s All-Star Game in 2018, the stadium — which opened in 2008 — hosted its first World Series games in the city since 1933 this past fall. Audi Field, the home of D.C. United, had a strong showing and the Mystics nearly topped the Redskins. We’ll get more into FedEx Field later on.
The results here aren’t exactly a shock.
Two of the three D.C. teams who have won championships, the Capitals and Mystics, belong to Leonsis. The other, the Nationals, is Lerner’s. The math comes darn close, reflecting the city’s distribution of titles. The Redskins, meanwhile, haven’t won a playoff game since 2005.
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The fascinating part of Leonsis’s case is the way his teams have diverged. Ask a Capitals or Mystics fan how they feel about him following a 2018 Stanley Cup and 2019 WNBA title, and they might speak in a different tone than a diehard of the Wizards, who have fallen to the bottom part of the NBA after a good-but-not-great run in the middle of the decade. But two out of three ain’t bad, and it’s made Leonsis popular enough to top this list.
Two talk-radio and website staples disappeared late in the previous decade, but not before the masses discussed, discussed, and discussed the contract status for Kirk Cousins and Bryce Harper. At least with the ex-Nats’ contract talks involved one future date.
Cousins’ situation meant rolling chatter from 2015, his first year as a starting quarterback until he signed a massive free-agent deal with Minnesota in 2018. We can debate whether the good-not-great Cousins was worth all the fuss. Still, future historians will have plenty to consider with Washington’s often confusing approach that included an unprecedented two franchise tag designations.
Harper signing with NL East rival Philadelphia in 2019, generated a 400-foot home run’s amount of consternation among the local fan base. By the end of the year, though, Nats’ nation found the ultimate joy in Mudville.
This topic no longer generates steady discussion, but it’s not forgotten. Of the 2,012 people to answer, 57.6 percent said Washington should change its nickname.
Our survey most definitely is not scientific. Regardless, the results are interesting relative to the trend over the past decade.
A 2014 poll for ESPN’s “Outside the Lines” found that 71 percent of respondents favored keeping the name. The ESPN article stated that the number dropped from 88 percent when the pollsters asked the questions 22 years before.
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The Public Policy Polling annual NFL poll in 2016 showed that from 410 fans, 64 percent stated Washington should not change its nickname.
That same year a Washington Post poll of Native Americans said nine in 10 are not offended by the Redskins name. However, a University of California, Berkeley poll from February showed nearly half of Native Americans found the Redskins nickname offensive. Dozens of protestors held a rally in Minnesota outside U.S. Bank Stadium before the Redskins-Vikings regular-season game in October.
At some point, the Redskins’ nickname topic regains traction, though there’s been no sign of budging from owner Daniel Snyder. We’ll see how future polls shape the debate.
The results — 72.03 percent of 2,002 respondents said no — speak more about the Snyder’s past than the future with Rivera. Washington reached the playoffs only four times this century and has finished with at least 10 wins twice. Last season’s 3-13 record marked the organization’s worst since 1994 and led to a coaching change and the ouster of longtime team president Bruce Allen. No matter the switches, Snyder remains.
The latest plan makes Rivera the lead voice and direction-setter among the day-to-day voices. That’s a new role for the former NFL linebacker and two-time NFL Coach of the Year with Carolina. Rivera is overseeing his first offseason in this capacity. With the new approach comes hope, or at least it should if not for the two decades run of ugh looming above all.
Whether nostalgia for the days at RFK Stadium swayed voters or not, folks want the Redskins back in the District. At least the nearly 75 percent of those in our survey do, versus a smaller faction loving Virginia. It looks like most are crabby about staying in Maryland.
Still, more than 200 participants added they prefer the Redskins remain in the current Landover, Md. site despite the frequent criticism of FedExField. Of course, not all the stay-put rationale involves the current digs, as many mentioned concern about paying for a new pad.
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“Stay put. We don’t (sic) want to pay for anything else,” said one voter, echoing the voice of many.
“Anywhere as long as it’s not paid for by public funds,” said another respondent. Others offered different locations not often considered unless recent congressional action reclassified Nebraska, Kansas, Texas and the city of St. Louis as part of the DMV.
Other reasons for a D.C. site included access to Metro and the notion that a “Washington” team should be based in — wait for it — Washington. Fair enough.
How do you choose between Stephen Strasburg and Max Scherzer? It’s tough, but nearly all of the voters picked one of the Nats two aces to lead the staff in wins with Strasburg prevailing with nearly half the votes. Lefty Patrick Corbin was a distant third with 131 votes and 15 people opted for the unexpected in picking the unknown fifth starter. (Hey, stranger things have happened in baseball.)
We thought this would be closer, but nearly 70 percent of you thought the Nationals got the right guy in signing Strasburg to a long-term deal. Rendon took home 588 of the 1914 votes cast, with a handful of people opting to not choose between the two and select both. Ah, but that was always a pipe dream, it seemed, given that the Nats said there were limits to their payroll, even after winning a Series.
Phew. When we do (finally) get back to normal, the COVID-19 outbreak won’t make most of you wary about taking in a game at Nats Park or sitting in the stands at Audi Field. That’s good news. Still, 37 percent of you admitted to at least some hesitation about mass gatherings, whether it’s safety, financial reasons, or just a change of heart. None of us know what the future will hold, but the new normal will almost certainly require new behaviors from fans.
(Photo by Dennis Schneidler/USA TODAY Sports)
