The Washington Commanders brand. What you like, what you don’t like, and suggestions to improve what we have.

Boone said:
Other than those who complain ‘black isn’t a Washington color’ or that we look like the Steelers, the black uniform is easily the best designed and most popular of the 3 Commanders jerseys (maybe not here but based on jersey sales). I don’t understand why that one would be the one they would choose to ‘update’?

I don’t recall this being said but possible I missed it.
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I agree with your sentiment. I think the black or a similar variation is here to stay. They aren’t going to change it because of the inflexibility of a portion of the fanbase.

Bottom line, they are popular and selling.
 
I think the new helmets with a GOLD facemask (NOT yellow) would be killer.

Make our colors truly reflect burgundy and gold. Respect our history with a slightly new twist
 
Interesting choice of words and visuals with the SB Victory Roman Numerals.
IMG_0147.png
 
Letthepointssoar said:
While the ownership group has knocked it out of the park for all things ON the field.... They've shit the bed on the branding side every chance they've had. So not to be Debbie Downer, but I fully expect more of the same next week.

Bleh.
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I feel the same way. They have been great with the football stuff but surprisingly tone deaf on the name and brand. It particularly bothers me that Harris said it would be up for the fans to decide. Obviously that was not true.

I think they do not understand what including the picture of Daniels with the spear means to some people. I would love something like that on the helmet but I think I will be disappointed. The W sucks and is totally emblematic of the previous ownership and organization. It is cheap and bland
 
Letthepointssoar said:
While the ownership group has knocked it out of the park for all things ON the field.... They've shit the bed on the branding side every chance they've had. So not to be Debbie Downer, but I fully expect more of the same next week.

Bleh.
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Not sure I share your opinion.

personally I think the ‘Raise Hail’ movement has been pretty good. The banners and flags that are out there are pretty cool.

They didn’t design the current uniforms and branding, they inherited it. They’ve always said from day 1 that they wanted to focus on the ‘On field’ before the other stuff, and it looks like that was the case.

Since they’ve taken over, we’ve also seen that tshirt come out with a tribute to Sean Taylor, that has the Redskins logo on the back.

I’m not saying they’ve done it all, not even saying they’ve done much… but I don’t know if i would describe it as ‘shitting the bed’ either. If anything it gets an ‘incomplete’ grade to this point.
 
Primus Porcus said:
They didn’t design the current uniforms and branding, they inherited it. They’ve always said from day 1 that they wanted to focus on the ‘On field’ before the other stuff, and it looks like that was the case.
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They did say that. But, they ( Harris, Rales, and Wright ) also said, paraphrasing, :

"" We're doing research "
" If the fans are talking about it, we have to listen."
" i understand, I grew up a fan "
" It's not about what we want, it's about what the city and the fans want. " And then when explaining why they're staying with the name, they cite the players, the organization, etc ... but not the fans. And why didn't he say anything about the fans ?
Because he couldn't.

I think it's statements like these that have frustrated some people.
Hopefully, what we get on Wednesday, will appease some of our fans, at least to a degree.
 
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Spearfeather said:
They did say say that. But, they ( Harris, Rales, and Wright ) also said, paraphrasing, :

"" We're doing research "
" If the fans are talking about it, we have to listen."
" i understand, I grew up a fan "
" It's not about what we want, it's about what the city and the fans want. " And then when explaining why they're staying with the name, they cite the players, the organization, etc ... but not the fans. And why didn't he say anything about the fans ?
Because he couldn't.

I think it's statements like these that have frustrated some people.
Hopefully, what we get on Wednesday, will appease some of our fans, at least to a degree.
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True, but it may not be us older fans that they're listening to. When your best selling jersey is the black alternate to your young stud QB, and it's very largely to a younger demographic, they have to take that into account. We don't know the limitations of changing the name, or even the conversations they had surrounding it. They're 18 months into an ownership and we're getting a uniform change. That's what the fans wanted, and very likely as 'quickly' as they could execute it with the NFL as well as Nike and the manufacturers. I just wonder about what the expectations are and if they're realistic. They're likely moving as fast as they can. Hell, i work for a large corporation and it took them 18 months and millions of dollars to 'tweak' our logo... and nobody can even tell the difference.

I don't know how it could have been 'better' over the last 18 months. Fans hate the uniforms, they're changing. Fans hate the stadium experience, they're changing it as much as they can. Fans hate losing, they're changing that. It seems like the final piece here is the name, while it's a very big piece i get it.... the end game of having a 4th name in 6 years is very tough, even if i dont really want to admit that myself. I'm not a big fan of Commanders either, but doesn't mean that stance can't change. Some of the greatest sports stories of support come from something other people just don't understand, and even laugh at. The old saying about RFK was that it was a shit hole, but it was OUR shit hole. This regime has clearly taken something with Commanders, and they building it the way they want it. The minute I heard Adam Peters and Dan Quinn describe a player in the draft evaluation process as having a 'Commander card' or whatever the cliche was, i figured the name was staying. They're buying into it inside the building, and looking to create something out of it... not rebrand to something else. I think they did listen to fans. Listening doesn't always mean the people they're listening to will get exactly what they want, but they were heard.


I'm also going to say something a little rough here.... Fans... generally... are stupid. They're on the outside looking in and trying to make decisions. They're ambitions, outrageous, and overzealous. They're irrational, ignorant to all the valid information, and tend to be extremely reactive.. Customers tend to tell a better story. That may sound dumb, but they're not the same thing. Customers may tell one story, while the voice of the fans tells another.... and at the end of the day, CUSTOMERS is the priority.
 
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Primus Porcus said:
True, but it may not be us older fans that they're listening to. When your best selling jersey is the black alternate to your young stud QB, and it's very largely to a younger demographic, they have to take that into account. We don't know the limitations of changing the name, or even the conversations they had surrounding it. They're 18 months into an ownership and we're getting a uniform change. That's what the fans wanted, and very likely as 'quickly' as they could execute it with the NFL as well as Nike and the manufacturers. I just wonder about what the expectations are and if they're realistic. They're likely moving as fast as they can. Hell, i work for a large corporation and it took them 18 months and millions of dollars to 'tweak' our logo... and nobody can even tell the difference.

I don't know how it could have been 'better' over the last 18 months. Fans hate the uniforms, they're changing. Fans hate the stadium experience, they're changing it as much as they can. Fans hate losing, they're changing that. It seems like the final piece here is the name, while it's a very big piece i get it.... the end game of having a 4th name in 6 years is very tough, even if i dont really want to admit that myself. I'm not a big fan of Commanders either, but doesn't mean that stance can't change. Some of the greatest sports stories of support come from something other people just don't understand, and even laugh at. The old saying about RFK was that it was a shit hole, but it was OUR shit hole. This regime has clearly taken something with Commanders, and they building it the way they want it. The minute I heard Adam Peters and Dan Quinn describe a player in the draft evaluation process as having a 'Commander card' or whatever the cliche was, i figured the name was staying. They're buying into it inside the building, and looking to create something out of it... not rebrand to something else. I think they did listen to fans. Listening doesn't always mean the people they're listening to will get exactly what they want, but they were heard.


I'm also going to say something a little rough here.... Fans... generally... are stupid. They're on the outside looking in and trying to make decisions. They're ambitions, outrageous, and overzealous. They're irrational, ignorant to all the valid information, and tend to be extremely reactive.. Customers tend to tell a better story. That may sound dumb, but they're not the same thing. Customers may tell one story, while the voice of the fans tells another.... and at the end of the day, CUSTOMERS is the priority.
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Most of that sounds dead on. But I think where you and I part ways is that there is something they could've done better (and you see it echoed throughout this thread from, yes, older fans). They could have told us the truth. The truth being, they likely weren't going to want to change the name, or couldn't. That they are marketing to a new generation of fans and that while they appreciate and would do everything they can to address the needs of lifelong fans, their primary focus was younger and future fans.

I'm not sure, as one of the fans we are talking about here, that 'being heard' carries a lot of weight or rings true when they have largely ignored the historic fanbase when it comes to the brand.

They just have and no parsing of 'intent' or 'look at all of the other positive things they've done' is going to make me or a lot of other fans feel they really recognize what the brand has meant to us.

Several things can be true at once. We can be forever grateful that Dan Snyder is no longer our owner. We can be beyond ecstatic about who our ownership group is, who they've brought into the front office and coaching roster. We can love the football moves and incredible success we are seeing on the field, and we can give all the credit in the world to Josh Harris and Company for saving our Washington fan lives - because they have done that. And we can also say that their efforts to address the brand have not been great, and have felt dismissive to lifelong fans. Yes - for the 'fans would hate it no matter what they did' crowd, it is an incredibly challenging marketing dilemma even for billionaires with the greatest marketing minds in the world at their disposal. All that can be true, and it's still fair to say that from a long-term fan's perspective, they have fallen way short of hopes and expectations.

Me? I'm kind of burned out on the whole thing. They will do what they think is best. The vast majority of fans will eventually get over it and continue rooting for the team, because in reality we have no other choice.
 
Boone said:
Most of that sounds dead on. But I think where you and I part ways is that there is something they could've done better (and you see it echoed throughout this thread from, yes, older fans). They could have told us the truth. The truth being, they likely weren't going to want to change the name, or couldn't. That they are marketing to a new generation of fans and that while they appreciate and would do everything they can to address the needs of lifelong fans, their primary focus was younger and future fans.

I'm not sure, as one of the fans we are talking about here, that 'being heard' carries a lot of weight or rings true when they have largely ignored the historic fanbase when it comes to the brand.

They just have and no parsing of 'intent' or 'look at all of the other positive things they've done' is going to make me or a lot of other fans feel they really recognize what the brand has meant to us.

Several things can be true at once. We can be forever grateful that Dan Snyder is no longer our owner. We can be beyond ecstatic about who our ownership group is, who they've brought into the front office and coaching roster. We can love the football moves and incredible success we are seeing on the field, and we can give all the credit in the world to Josh Harris and Company for saving our Washington fan lives - because they have done that. And we can also say that their efforts to address the brand have not been great, and have felt dismissive to lifelong fans. Yes - for the 'fans would hate it no matter what they did' crowd, it is an incredibly challenging marketing dilemma even for billionaires with the greatest marketing minds in the world at their disposal. All that can be true, and it's still fair to say that from a long-term fan's perspective, they have fallen way short of hopes and expectations.

Me? I'm kind of burned out on the whole thing. They will do what they think is best. The vast majority of fans will eventually get over it and continue rooting for the team, because in reality we have no other choice.
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maybe i'm giving them more of the benefit of the doubt than i 'should' but I don't know that they had their mind made up from the start that it was never changing. I think they were open to it. It's all speculation on all of our parts as we'll likely never know the depths of what was talked about in those rooms behind closed doors. I'll freely admit that i'm one of those fans i was referencing in my own post about being bias, non-objective, and irrational at times. I try to keep my head centered, but i also have been known to put on a pair of burgundy glasses from time to time... it happens to all of us.
 
The black jesey being the best selling ... still don't know if that's true, but I was listening to Sheehan a couple of days ago, he says citing people within the organization, that by the time Harris bought the team, a full two-thrds of the fanbase had been lost. He thinks some of them have come back, but thinks some more of the half - in, half - out fans could have been won or would have been won over with better branding. If the league had put restrictions on changing the name again, something that certainly would have been known at the time of the sale, then ownership should have communicated that to the fans. Not saying younger fans shouldnt be taken into account, and while they're being given new jerseys for Christmas, one thing those eight year old fans are not doing is buying season tickets and club suites. That's being done ( or not done ) by the " older fans ", and even with another name change, that eight year old watching Daniels & Co. making a run at the Super Bowl ... isn"t going anywhere.
 
Primus Porcus - that may well be true. But as recently as 6-7 months ago Harris was still playing word games when asked about the topic. I personally think they have known for well over a year that they weren't going in that direction, but Harris refused to definitively address the question. In fact, it took several reporters pushing him on the question even when he did reveal the truth before he actually mustered up the courage to answer the damned question.

There's a reason a lot of fans are still pissed about how rebranding was handled (or not handled). And it's not because Harris and Company knocked it out of the park.
 
Looks like the 70th except for the base white color. I can dig it.
 
Boone said:
Don’t know who came up with this but it’s pretty hot if you ask me…

View attachment 11650
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Don't tease me. I'd buy every jersey I could get my hands on if they did something this strong. I just refuse to believe it until I see it. I'm from Missouri - Show Me.

Here's to hoping my rare bout of pessimism is misguided and we get a pleasant surprise.
 
Letthepointssoar said:
Don't tease me. I'd buy every jersey I could get my hands on if they did something this strong. I just refuse to believe it until I see it. I'm from Missouri - Show Me.

Here's to hoping my rare bout of pessimism is misguided and we get a pleasant surprise.
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You’re my kind of fan brother
 
The team itself already confirmed the helmet will feature some form of the “W”. It’s an alternate uniform and helmet (and rumor is that the new alternate uniform this year in 2025 will portend the future permanent uniform change in 2026), but the uniform is the biggest change, seemingly. The helmet seems like it definitely won’t feature the spear

Those mock ups (or something like it) are beautiful though imo and I wish it was what we were getting
 
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