“My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over,”-President Gerald R. Ford, August 9th, 1974.
The 38th president of the United States made that statement precisely 31 miles from Ashburn, VA, and the Commander’s current home. The stakes Ford talked about were a little more important than who owned a football team. However, many fans feel as if this quote is fitting now that Dan Snyder does not own the Nation’s Capitol’s football franchise.
A unanimous vote by NFL owners on July 20th, 2023, sent Snyder sailing off into the distance. He exited literally, with a check of $6.05B, less a $60M fine, a $1B loan to the league, and who knows what other debts he now has to settle up.
As we start a new season next week, the team now under new ownership and fan approval for the first time in more than two decades, we look back at what will Dan Snyder’s legacy be remembered for.
Incompetence?
Greed?
Toxicity?
All of these adjectives are strong contenders but, in the end, what destroyed the superfan turned ‘Public Enemy Number One’ was hubris.
Snyder’s fandom had been talked about for years. It was trumpeted from the time he was introduced as the team’s new owner, buying the franchise from the estate of Jack Kent Cooke.
It served as a cover for some of his impulsive and immature decisions. What it couldn’t shield him from was himself and his inability to recognize that the team he bought was not the team he grew up rooting for.
When President Ford uttered those words in the White House, the Bullets had recently relocated from Baltimore (never mind the NBA was nothing like it is today), the Capitals would not play their first game until months later, and the Nationals were still in Montreal. Washington sports revolved around the Redskins and because of that, fans and sponsors alike paid a premium to be close to the team. Snyder’s fatal mistake was not noticing the world changed, even before he bought the team.
Instead, he crashed around the DMV and the country with the arrogance of an emperor whose kingdom was collapsing. From the first days of his tenure, he treated his customers, staff, and partners the same, like dirt, as if there was no other game in town.
Don’t like the stadium traffic, screw you, we’re the Redskins.
Don’t like the ticket and concession prices, screw you, we’re the Redskins.
Don’t like the sponsorship rates, screw you, we’re the Redskins.
Don’t like how you are being treated as an employee, screw you, we’re the Redskins.
Forget the fact that the team hadn’t made the playoffs or won a Super Bowl in the previous eight years by the time he rode in. The world was starting to change in ways he either didn’t or couldn’t recognize.
Fantasy football meant younger fans cared more about individual players than teams.
Hi-definition flat-screen TVs could be bought for less than a season ticket and transplanted fans from across the country had options on Sunday besides the home team.
On the field, it changed as well. Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom came to town and started the ‘Rock the Red’ era in Chinatown. Baseball came back to DC and started winning, if not immediately, well before the novelty wore off. Even the Wizards, though not good, were a competent enough organization to ride the coattails of the NBA boom to cut into Snyder’s fiefdom.
It all meant that fans had options where there once were few. Mix in a toxic workplace, lawsuits of season ticket holders, and bad play on the field and you get to where we were before the sale.
And so, here we are. Good riddance to Snyder and his toxic workplace. Josh Harris began his ownership by buying a round of drinks at two parties organized by local radio stations.
As far as Snyder’s legacy, let’s just say it ended the way it started. Never having the trust of a once great and iconic organization viewed as the NFL’s most distressed property from the fanbase, workers, and sponsors. Everyone who loved that blueprint encountered two-plus decades of futility that never had to be.
It’s going to take a lot to restore that sanctity, but now football fans have some hope.