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Dan's Disaster: How the Washington Redskins Plummeted to Rock Bottom
The professional football team in the nation's capital was the hottest ticket in town for decades. But under Dan Snyder's ownership, the franchise has lost a lot of games and managed to alienate even some of its most dedicated fans. What made one of most unshakable fandoms in America give up on its team?
I will say this for a stadium abandoned by its fans: There's no line for the bathroom.
No line for beer. No line for hot dogs. No line—and no one, save a single solitary soul who seemed to be asking for directions—at the team stores, at least one of which dispatched an honest-to-god barker to stand out front and try to convince Redskins faithful to come in from the concourse and buy a $31.99 GO HOGS! T-shirt or else a $25 red-and-gold elf. Christmas is coming, you know?
Three days before the winter holiday, FedExField is running, alas, a little short on good cheer. I have come to the stadium to see in person what I have heard so often: that, allegedly, a football team plays in Washington. FedExField, just over the Maryland border, is a scant 7 miles as the crow flies from my home in northeast D.C. In the four years that I've lived in the District, I've heard often that this was once a football town, that the people of this city once forsook all else before their Sunday gridiron ritual, that there is, allegedly, a squad of men who compete under the city's name eight times a year just down the road.
But you'd scarcely know it. This is a city still reveling in a sudden glut of sporting championships—the Mystics and Nationals this fall, the Capitals the previous year—and the Redskins, at the tail end of yet another lost season, have slipped into something like obscurity. In just the latest mark of previously unthinkable ignominy, this month saw the Baltimore Ravens, who just secured the AFC's top seed, utterly eclipse viewership for a Redskins game in the same time slot—in the D.C. market.
The fans aren't gone completely—the paying crowd on Sunday, the last home game of the season and a divisional showdown with the New York Giants, is 66,083, meaning only a fifth of the stadium's seats are unspoken for, so you can, for example, find a long line for stale pretzels at the Johnny Rockets, one of the very few concessions stands left open to service the sparsely populated upper deck. But make the mistake of asking a guy hawking Redskins and Giants beanies outside FedEx which one he'd sold more of, and you'll get a look like he thinks—knows—you haven't been paying attention. “Giants,†he says. Take a look later at the stadium's distinctly blue-tinged lower bowl and you'll know he's right. Gulp.
WhenWhen I told friends that I would be attending Sunday's game between the 3-11 Redskins and 3-11 Giants, more than a few tried to intervene. “Wow sorry rip to you,†one texted; “Oh Claire no why,†wrote another.
And not without reason. Since the start of the 1999 season, when Dan Snyder bought the team, the Redskins have gone 142-192. In that time, they have had a winning record in just six seasons and have won a whopping two playoff games. The Snyder era has seen nine head coaches and 22 starting quarterbacks, and, during the past decade and change, a precipitous fall in attendance. In 2008, the team led the league in average attendance, 88,604. By the end of the 2018 season, that number had plummeted 31 percent to 61,028, placing them dead last in the league in terms of percentage of the stadium filled.
This season, things got especially bleak. In the fall, the Redskins made headlines when tickets started going for as little as $6. FedExField, the team's home of 22 years, looked empty on broadcasts, or—worse—so full of opposing fans that Eagles running back Jay Ajayi decreed the teams' divisional showdown this month a home game, a full year after the Redskins since-departed COO asked fans to help “grab that home-field advantage back.†In November, the Washingtonian ran a story detailing the successful completion of what might be called “the Redskins $30 challengeâ€: Could writer Madeline Rundlett get a ticket, eat, and drink at a game for less than $30? Indeed, she wrote, she could, treating herself to fries, spiked hot chocolate, and what sounded like an exceedingly poor time, all for under her budget.
Last month, Jordan Fabian, a lifelong Redskins fan who grew up in the D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland, bought tickets to what might well have been the 2019-20 NFL season's worst matchup, a Week 11 showdown between the lowly Redskins and the lowlier Jets at FedEx. Except the Jets, who at that point in the season had a dazzling two victories to Washington's one, looked positively dominant against the home team, thumping them 34-17. But no matter for Fabian: He and his friend had splurged for seats on the club level … and paid all of $11 for the privilege.
“I just spent the game laughing,†he says. “That's about all you can do at this point.â€
Click on the link for the full article
The professional football team in the nation's capital was the hottest ticket in town for decades. But under Dan Snyder's ownership, the franchise has lost a lot of games and managed to alienate even some of its most dedicated fans. What made one of most unshakable fandoms in America give up on its team?
I will say this for a stadium abandoned by its fans: There's no line for the bathroom.
No line for beer. No line for hot dogs. No line—and no one, save a single solitary soul who seemed to be asking for directions—at the team stores, at least one of which dispatched an honest-to-god barker to stand out front and try to convince Redskins faithful to come in from the concourse and buy a $31.99 GO HOGS! T-shirt or else a $25 red-and-gold elf. Christmas is coming, you know?
Three days before the winter holiday, FedExField is running, alas, a little short on good cheer. I have come to the stadium to see in person what I have heard so often: that, allegedly, a football team plays in Washington. FedExField, just over the Maryland border, is a scant 7 miles as the crow flies from my home in northeast D.C. In the four years that I've lived in the District, I've heard often that this was once a football town, that the people of this city once forsook all else before their Sunday gridiron ritual, that there is, allegedly, a squad of men who compete under the city's name eight times a year just down the road.
But you'd scarcely know it. This is a city still reveling in a sudden glut of sporting championships—the Mystics and Nationals this fall, the Capitals the previous year—and the Redskins, at the tail end of yet another lost season, have slipped into something like obscurity. In just the latest mark of previously unthinkable ignominy, this month saw the Baltimore Ravens, who just secured the AFC's top seed, utterly eclipse viewership for a Redskins game in the same time slot—in the D.C. market.
The fans aren't gone completely—the paying crowd on Sunday, the last home game of the season and a divisional showdown with the New York Giants, is 66,083, meaning only a fifth of the stadium's seats are unspoken for, so you can, for example, find a long line for stale pretzels at the Johnny Rockets, one of the very few concessions stands left open to service the sparsely populated upper deck. But make the mistake of asking a guy hawking Redskins and Giants beanies outside FedEx which one he'd sold more of, and you'll get a look like he thinks—knows—you haven't been paying attention. “Giants,†he says. Take a look later at the stadium's distinctly blue-tinged lower bowl and you'll know he's right. Gulp.
WhenWhen I told friends that I would be attending Sunday's game between the 3-11 Redskins and 3-11 Giants, more than a few tried to intervene. “Wow sorry rip to you,†one texted; “Oh Claire no why,†wrote another.
And not without reason. Since the start of the 1999 season, when Dan Snyder bought the team, the Redskins have gone 142-192. In that time, they have had a winning record in just six seasons and have won a whopping two playoff games. The Snyder era has seen nine head coaches and 22 starting quarterbacks, and, during the past decade and change, a precipitous fall in attendance. In 2008, the team led the league in average attendance, 88,604. By the end of the 2018 season, that number had plummeted 31 percent to 61,028, placing them dead last in the league in terms of percentage of the stadium filled.
This season, things got especially bleak. In the fall, the Redskins made headlines when tickets started going for as little as $6. FedExField, the team's home of 22 years, looked empty on broadcasts, or—worse—so full of opposing fans that Eagles running back Jay Ajayi decreed the teams' divisional showdown this month a home game, a full year after the Redskins since-departed COO asked fans to help “grab that home-field advantage back.†In November, the Washingtonian ran a story detailing the successful completion of what might be called “the Redskins $30 challengeâ€: Could writer Madeline Rundlett get a ticket, eat, and drink at a game for less than $30? Indeed, she wrote, she could, treating herself to fries, spiked hot chocolate, and what sounded like an exceedingly poor time, all for under her budget.
Last month, Jordan Fabian, a lifelong Redskins fan who grew up in the D.C. suburb of Montgomery County, Maryland, bought tickets to what might well have been the 2019-20 NFL season's worst matchup, a Week 11 showdown between the lowly Redskins and the lowlier Jets at FedEx. Except the Jets, who at that point in the season had a dazzling two victories to Washington's one, looked positively dominant against the home team, thumping them 34-17. But no matter for Fabian: He and his friend had splurged for seats on the club level … and paid all of $11 for the privilege.
“I just spent the game laughing,†he says. “That's about all you can do at this point.â€
Click on the link for the full article
